


Cri du Cœur

by NoHappyEnding, unfinishedpages



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Domestic Fluff, HA YALL THOUGHT, Jokes about condoms, Jongin is a teacher, Kyungsoo is an architect, M/M, NHE Round 3, Romance, Slow Burn, casual mentions of Harry Potter, nhe, nhe 2018, no happy ending, please practice safe sex, slight sexual content, yeet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-19
Updated: 2019-02-19
Packaged: 2019-10-25 01:14:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 27,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17715257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoHappyEnding/pseuds/NoHappyEnding, https://archiveofourown.org/users/unfinishedpages/pseuds/unfinishedpages
Summary: Cri du Cœur: A cry from the heart.Kyungsoo could only wish for his forever with Jongin.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **Prompt#:** 62  
>  **Prompt:** A and B are at the altar, about to get married. just as they're about to kiss A wakes up to an empty space beside him. He cries and remembers, B died years ago.  
>  **Prompter:** [notzuly](https://twitter.com/notzuly)  
>  **Pairing/Main character(s):** Kai/D.O.  
>  **Side character(s) (if any):** Kim Junmyeon, Byun Baekhyun, Oh Sehun  
>  **Word count:** 27.8K words  
>  **Warning(s)/Additional tag(s):** Romance, Domestic Fluff, Slow Burn, Angst, Yeet, Jokes about condoms, please practice safe sex, casual mentions of Harry Potter, Jongin is a teacher, Kyungsoo is an architect, Slight Sexual Content, HA YALL THOUGHT, Major Character Death, I mean, This is a signature ‘me’ move, enjoy.  
>  **Author's note:**  
>  This was an absolute pile of word vomit, and I actually changed the plot multiple times in the course of writing this, so there may be some left-over inconsistencies, but nonetheless, it was fun. Writing the last part had been my favourite of all, but you’ll have to read it to find out.
> 
> I’d like to thank my beta D, for always tolerating my clutch writing bullshit constantly, and A & T, for helping me with developing the plot with me. Thank you, my Bs. I watched too many Netflix stand up shows while writing this, so a joke or two may have popped up.
> 
> To the prompter, I'm sorry if I seemed to have taken some liberties with your prompt, changing the years to just a number of months. I've crammed this, but I still hope you enjoy this. Nonetheless, I’m blubbering. I am also sorry for Native French speakers, I have butchered your beautiful language. Thanks to you too, reader, for giving this fic a little bit of your time.

Honest to god, Kyungsoo and Jongin never had the meet cute story everyone had expected them to have.

Did they suddenly meet eyes in the middle of a busy road, and everything just fell into place? No.

Was their relationship a product of a forced blind date-turned-success story? Even farther from the truth.

Perhaps a childhood crush that eventually blossomed into young love, further strengthened by the times? Absolutely not.

When they choose to tell people the real story, most people just think they’re just taking a piss at them, which was Baekhyun’s — _Kyungsoo’s childhood friend_ —reaction. Jongin would merely laugh as he elaborated the story, while Kyungsoo hung his head in shame, ears tipped red in embarrassment, no matter how many times they’ve shared it.

In fact, the first time they met in a bar, Kyungsoo was on the edge of truly being piss drunk on expensive vodka and passing out on the bar when he swung his fist hard enough to bruise Jongin’s heartbreakingly beautiful face.

Jongin in return, had wanted to retaliate, but his bubbling irritation was calmed by Kyungsoo’s friend, a petite woman busy supporting him by the arm as she rushed to apologize to Jongin, who was still holding on to his cheek, skin hot and the bruised muscle throbbing under his hand.

“I’m sorry—oh my god, Kyungsoo.” She turned to the man she was holding up. “You punched the wrong person.” She had hissed harshly, while Jongin stood there awkwardly holding a beer bottle to his cheek as he waited for an explanation before he instigated a fight.

They made quite a pair—pretty, doe eyed, dark hair —but in Jongin’s opinion, they passed more as siblings than a couple.

“There was a guy who was getting too comfortable with me earlier,” She explained, gauging Jongin’s reaction before continuing. “I tried to tell him off, but he was too much, so I asked Kyungsoo to help me.” Jongin nodded slowly, though not entirely buying the story.

“I have never even talked to you, much less looked at you for the entirety of this night.” Jongin answered flatly, moving the bottle away from his face to massage his cheek, hissing as he did so. “Which brings me to my point of this idiot not swinging his fist at the right person.”

“Oh, did I?” Kyungsoo moaned out, as he straightened up to lean against the corner of the bar. He rubbed at his face as he narrowed his eye at Jongin’s face, who was still obviously not amused by the turn of events. “Oh fuck. I’m so sorry, man.”

The one time he went out for a drink, he got sucker punched across the face. Some rotten luck—Jongin had thought to himself, not actually wanting to instigate a proper fight with this man if he could punch this hard.

“We were celebrating, and I didn’t want some jackass to,” He sighed, as if grappling with his brain for the ability to speak without slurring the words together. “ruin Jihyun’s night just ‘cause she didn’t wanna talk to him.”

Jongin sighed and waved it off. “Look, it’s fine. Don’t worry about it.” He murmured. Jongin understood Kyungsoo’s intentions, no matter how misguided they were. He took off without another word, but not before taking one last look at Kyungsoo still staring off somewhere with a furrow in his brows and glasses askew across his nose.

Fuck it. Might as well force his moral compass to whatever alcohol induced direction Kyungsoo’s was pointing to. He approached Jihyun and leaned in closer to ask her a question midst the booming music, which she had hesitantly answered, pointing to a man across the bar.

He ended up punching the right person for Jihyun and Kyungsoo that night and had gone home with a swollen cheek and sprained wrist instead of a new conquest.

It was worth it, though, hearing Kyungsoo’s surprised whoop from the door as he entered the cab.

 

_\--_

 

“You’re deep in thought.” Came a quiet voice from his right, slender fingers carding through the shorter strands of hair by his ear, nails gentle on his scalp before they made their way down his nape, tracing nonsensical patterns against the sensitive skin.

Kyungsoo was behind the wheel, the repetitive motions coaxing him to give into his exhaustion, but the underlying disbelief thrumming in his veins overshadowed his heavy eyelids, choosing to focus on the road back home from Gangneung.

He discovered traces of the sea as he licked off the lingering salt off his lips, humming a reply before stealing a quick glance at this right to meet eyes with Jongin, who was curled up in the passenger seat.

“Hmm?” The hand still preoccupied with Kyungsoo’s hair and nape ceased its actions to pull at the elder’s ear gently. “You’re keeping things from me now, huh?” came the almost harsh reprimand from Jongin, but all pretence of his anger broke when his lips eased themselves into a grin as Kyungsoo merely raised an eyebrow at him in response.

Pulling over at a red light, Kyungsoo finally allowed himself to look at Jongin and fully take in everything, and Christ, he could feel his breath being taken from him. The wind-swept hair, the almost mischievous glint in his eyes, the low rumble of his voice and that teasing curl of his lips seemed to turn the overplayed pop song playing in the radio into white noise.

In that moment, nothing seemed to matter more than Jongin in his favourite sweater slipping off one shoulder, seated with one leg tucked under the other, talking in that low tone about anything and everything as they slowly made their way back from sinking their toes in the sand to the hustle of their life in the city in the middle of the night.

He knew why Jongin kept talking about whatever, despite the multiple times he’d stopped midsentence to yawn. Jongin was forcing himself to stay up to keep Kyungsoo company during the long drive back to Seoul, pausing for second at a time to close his eyes, long lashes brushing against his cheeks before finding another topic to pick apart.

They could’ve taken the train, but Kyungsoo was still as amazingly stubborn as ever, adamantly insisted that he drive.

What heroics Kyungsoo did in his previous lifetime to deserve Jongin in this one, he may never know.

He reached over to turn the radio off, the last notes of the song tapering off into silence. “You? Never.” Kyungsoo uttered sotto voce over the quiet purr of the engine, but Jongin didn’t seem to buy the response at all. “Somethin’ wrong? You’ve been quiet the whole ride home.”

Something tinged Jongin’s voice as he talked, perhaps sadness? Disappointment? Kyungsoo couldn’t exactly be sure. “Already regretting this?” Jongin raised his hand almost elegantly over the console, the simple band on his ring finger glinting under the streetlights as they passed them.

Kyungsoo scoffed in disbelief, as if the mere thought of Jongin’s suggestion offended him, before he grabbed the same hand, pressing his lips against tanned knuckles. “Hush. I’ve never been so sure of something, and someone in my life.” He could see the fond look on Jongin’s eyes in his peripheral as Kyungsoo intertwined their fingers.

“Then why are you so quiet?”

“I’m happy. You said yes to me—I still can’t wrap my mind around it.” Kyungsoo replied breathlessly, a smile still on his face, bright and prominent.

Four years of ups and downs had all boiled down to this. Kyungsoo tightened his grip on Jongin’s hand briefly, before letting it go in favour of putting both his hands on the wheel, much to Jongin’s disappointment.

“I sure did. I’m going to marry you, Kyungsoo,” Jongin leaned in to press a daring kiss on his cheek as he was driving, lips soft on his skin as they lingered before he spoke again. “You are going to have to keep tossing my single socks from the dresser and buying me chocolate milk after work for the rest of our lives.”

He stated with a grin, before Jongin’s smile cooled down into something a little more serious. “but strangely I feel like there’s something else you’re thinking about, other than the celebratory sex, of course.” Jongin stated in a matter of fact tone, shaking his head at Kyungsoo’s snort. “Am I wrong?”

“I was actually thinking about the first time we met.” Kyungsoo explained as he made a turn, shaking his head at the memory as Jongin broke into peals of laughter beside him. “Oh Christ. That explains the guilty look on your face.” The younger said, almost breathless with the intensity of his chuckling.

“Remind me to not include vodka in our wedding reception. Who knows who you’ll challenge to a beat down then.”

“Then don’t include tequila either. God knows you turn into someone else when you’ve had way too much.” Kyungsoo replied as he pulled over in the parking lot, the loud creak of the break concealing Jongin’s scandalized gasp.

“I do not.” The younger retorted, but the rosy flush spreading across his cheekbones and chest betrayed his tone. “Yes, you do.” Kyungsoo returned the matter of fact tone Jongin had used on him earlier, with an almost mocking lilt to it as he got out of the car to retrieve their things from the back seat.

“You like my alter ego anyways.” Jongin said in an almost petulant tone as they waited for the elevator, eyes focused on his feet as he shook the grains of sand away from his toes and slippers.

Kyungsoo reached for Jongin’s hand as they boarded the elevator, leaning in to whisper something in his ear with a rare boldness fuelled by the lack of other passengers. “I do, but only when we’re alone. You’re quite an incredible lap dancer when you’re drunk on tequila.”

“Oh my god, Kyungsoo.” Hissed Jongin, rolling his eyes with the familiar annoyed curl of his lips as they got off their floor. “Just open the door, I wanna go to bed.” He muttered, uncrossing his arms to drop the bags onto the sofa before making a beeline to the bedroom as soon as Kyungsoo twisted the key.

Kyungsoo merely chuckled under his breath at his boyfriend—no, fiancé’s—antics, before following him into the bedroom, staring at Jongin’s form lying face down into sheets before manoeuvring him on his back.

“And here I thought you were anticipating the celebratory sex as much I was.” The elder mused, smirking at the conflicted expressions on Jongin’s face as he straddled the younger. Jongin had shed his cardigan off into some random corner of the room, only dressed in a thin vest and loose jeans.

As he adjusted himself on Jongin’s lap, Kyungsoo immediately felt hands linger on the waistband of his jeans, one finger even daring to venture under his plain linen shirt. “You make it hard to resist when you say it like that, you know.” Jongin murmured, arching up to press kisses down the line of Kyungsoo’s throat, hands already busy with undoing the buttons.

“Easy, tiger.” Kyungsoo let a breathless laugh when Jongin’s teeth nipped at the underside of his jaw. “We have all the time in the world for that later, but for now.” He cupped Jongin’s face between his hands, running a thumb on a cheekbone as his eyes seemed to burn the image of Jongin under the moonlight spilling into their room.

Eyes achingly soft as they stared back up at him, lips parted, and hair fanned out above him akin to a halo—Christ, it made Kyungsoo’s chest ache with how much he loved this man and everything about him.

“I love you, Jongin.” Kyungsoo whispered, almost afraid of the intensity of his words, but it only made Jongin smile up at him with tears in his eyes. “You have made me the happiest man tonight, and for the rest of my days.” He continued, before leaning down to press their lips together.

Once.

Twice.

“I love you too, Kyungsoo.”

And again.

Yet this time, words couldn’t describe the bliss thrumming through their veins as Jongin made the move to shed his shirt before his hands found their home back into Kyungsoo’s hair, threading his fingers through the silky strands to press their lips deeper.

As the rough pads of his fingers trailed lower to thumb along the elder’s waistband, Kyungsoo chuckled despite Jongin busying himself with his clothes. “How you have the energy for this, I don’t know.” Jongin smirked, pulling himself up to push the linen shirt off of Kyungsoo’s shoulders with an urgency that didn’t match the languid kisses on his neck nor the lingering touches on his stomach.

“Can’t keep up, hyung?” Jongin retorted, though he was more concerned with unclasping Kyungsoo’s jeans, making a mental prayer of thanks that Kyungsoo didn’t pour himself into a skin-tight pair like his as he gripped the waistband almost harshly to pull it off.

“Though, I don’t really mind doing all the work.” He whispered, voice low and filled with sin as his hands ventured lower and lower on Kyungsoo’s back before he made a move to reverse their positions with a buck of his hips, quickly claiming his position on Kyungsoo’s lap and somehow getting his jeans off in the process.

Unable to hold the laughter from his lips, Kyungsoo pulled Jongin into his arms as he willed the surge of affection to pass through, but it merely grew in his chest as Jongin whined to be let go. Relenting to the arms pushing at his waist, the elder reached up to tuck the longer strands of Jongin’s fringe off his face.

“Don’t look at me like that.” Came the murmur from Jongin, who had mirrored Kyungsoo’s expression filled with his most ardent affections. Jongin continued without waiting for Kyungsoo’s reply. “It makes me feel like at the top of the world.”

“Why not?”

“I’m scared I won’t be able to get down.”

“Then jump. I’ll catch you.”

“Is that a promise?”

“One of many I intend to keep.” Kyungsoo stated, almost nonchalantly, as if he was stating something as mundane as the time of day.

Jongin chuckled as he leaned into Kyungsoo’s touch on his back, almost purring as the fingers going up and down the length of his spine. “Don’t you think it’s too early to be coming up with our vows? I mean, I’m not opposed to it, but you’re excited.” He grinned, straightening up in Kyungsoo’s lap.

Kyungsoo shrugged his shoulders. “No such thing as too early.”

“If you talk as much as you do now, the wedding would take ages.” Jongin sighed out almost dramatically, without even hiding his intentions as he moved his ass to rest on Kyungsoo’s crotch, ever the minx. “But for now, let’s get our priorities in order first.”

Kyungsoo snorted, completely dispelling the sensual air Jongin was attempting to build again before they let their conversation run its too long course. “I thought you were going to say, ‘ _let’s get our priorities straight,_ ’—okay, I’ll stop talking.” He bit back the rest of his comment over the positively poisonous glare Jongin had given him, yelping at the well-deserved pinch on his side.

“You are terrible.” Jongin shook his head in disbelief, the timbre of his voice dropping into that of pure sex and Kyungsoo was sure he could taste their mingling desire in the air. “I’ve been told, but I assure you, this isn’t one of the things I am notoriously terrible at.”

A smirk danced across Jongin’s lips as one of his perfectly manicured brows rose up in provocation. “Prove it then— _oh_ —now, that’s rude.” He shot back breathlessly when Kyungsoo bucked his hips into his, unable to hold the deep rolls of his own hips in retaliation. “You didn’t let me finish.”

“Oh? Don’t worry. I’ll let you finish.” Kyungsoo murmured, before finally ceasing all talk to grip Jongin’s chin firmly, sealing their lips in another deep and greedy kiss as his other arm snaked around Jongin’s waist to pull him close, relishing the almost suffocating heat of their skin pressed against each other.

Jongin smiled into their kiss, murmuring something incoherent as Kyungsoo’s hands travelled down to his thighs, gripping the muscle enough for the familiar starved look in Jongin’s eyes returned. “You better put your money where your mouth is.”

_\--_

Jongin let out a breathless laugh as he laid on the clean side of the bed, sated and bone-tired while he waited for his pulse to calm after being pulled apart at the seams by Kyungsoo’s mouth and hands.

He watched Kyungsoo return the sentiment with a quiet chuckle as he wiped the younger’s chest with a towel he had snatched from the bathroom, still as efficient with aftercare, even with his shaky hands. In the few minutes that Jongin needed to gather his mind, Kyungsoo had somehow gotten dressed in the same linen shirt from earlier though chose to forgo any jeans for his boxers instead.

With his chest still heaving from the heavy breaths he took, and his skin still tingling as he rolled to the cooler side of the bed, he slowly began to regain control of his limbs after some careful unfolding on Kyungsoo’s part, and some stretching on his, and stood up on shaky legs to follow Kyungsoo into the kitchen where the elder was preoccupied with unscrewing a bottle of champagne.

“Aren’t we a tad too late with the celebratory champagne?” Jongin asked, moving to wrap his arms around Kyungsoo’s waist. Kyungsoo leaned back to let the younger snuggle into the crook of his neck more, resting a hand on Jongin’s intertwined ones on his stomach.

His voice was raspy, tone breathy to the point of almost slurring his sentences into the skin of Kyungsoo’s marked up nape. “Of course not.” Kyungsoo replied, pouring himself and Jongin a flute each.

Kyungsoo had no doubt that even half a flute of champagne after sex would be enough for Jongin to sleep till midday, but he had unwrapped himself away from Kyungsoo to hop onto the countertop, crossing his legs to offer himself some sense of modesty with the same oversized sweater he had thrown carelessly over his shoulders as he gracefully plucked the remaining flute off the counter.

Jongin, under the dim yellow lights of their kitchen, had looked absolutely magnificent despite the exhaustion clear in the lines of his shoulders and back, yet his face glowed with uninhibited bliss. Raising an elegant wrist up, he proposed a toast.

“To all the people we were, and all the people we shall be in the future, I could only wish I’d end up with you in each lifetime. To us.” Said Jongin, as he touched their glasses together with a sharp clink, smiling as the bubbles tickled his lips as they lingered on the rim.

Kyungsoo frowned, pulling the glass away from Jongin’s mouth. “You’re not supposed to drink until I’ve made mine too.” Jongin had looked almost affronted, rolling his eyes as he reached over to refill his glass. “Happy?”

“Unbelievably so.” Replied the elder, scooting closer so that his vacant hand was resting on Jongin’s knee.

“To the love of my life, my sun, moon and all of my stars—” Jongin reached out to push at Kyungsoo’s shoulder jokingly at his words but had listened raptly as soon as his giggles died down. “With you, I am more than I ever thought possible, and here in our shoebox of an apartment, we built our dreams and now, we are closer than ever to reaching them.”

Kyungsoo had uttered all his words with a heart aching sense of sincerity that Jongin had started to dab at the corner of his eyes with the sleeve of his sweater with a teary-eyed smile. “I told you it’s too early for vows, hyung. Stop it.” He said weakly, voice cracking as Kyungsoo held his hand, the one with the engagement ring.

It was small and modest—a thin plain band of platinum that Kyungsoo had saved up for months—but that didn’t make a difference when Jongin froze just hours earlier, staring at Kyungsoo kneeling down on the sand with his heart on his throat, before promptly bursting into tears and stuttered _‘yes’s’_ before Kyungsoo managed to ask the question.

“Because with this, you have already made one of my dreams a reality. This is just the start, and I couldn’t be luckier to be on this crazy ride with you. To us.” Kyungsoo trailed off, mirroring Jongin and touching their glasses with a softer clink, watching Jongin wipe his tears away with a laugh already bubbling in his throat.

“How are you going to get through the wedding when you cry at everything I say? These aren’t even my vows yet.” Kyungsoo set both their glasses to the side to wrap Jongin in his arms once more, laughing at the frustrated groan Jongin had let out against his chest. “I’m going to write better vows. I swear it. I’m going to make you cry harder than I’ll ever do in the wedding.”

“Sounds like a promise.”

\--

 

“Oh no. I’m definitely getting old.” Kyungsoo murmured, wincing at the crick in his neck as he turned over in Jongin’s embrace. “Jongin—love, I have to go to work.” He murmured, trying to loosen Jongin’s grip around his waist as his right arm had long fallen asleep with the weight of the younger’s head resting on it.

Staying up on a Wednesday evening was definitely a bad choice, and the long bout of sex—though welcome, had been taxing to his already tired body and back—and handful of wine glasses had reduced them to both blissful, boneless messes on their dishevelled sheets in the middle of the night.

A bad choice on Kyungsoo’s part really—exhaustion and alcohol never mix well for the both of them judging alone from the slight twinge of pain coming from his temples further worsened by the sunlight streaming thru the uncovered blinds in their bedroom.

Jongin had groaned into his chest, before rushing to turn over to sneeze thankfully in the opposite direction. “Oh fuck.” He murmured, reaching over to grab the random shirt hanging off the bed post to wipe his nose on it. “I don’t think I’ll be able to go to work today.”

Breathing deeply as he burrowed into the sheets, Jongin let out a sound of appreciation as Kyungsoo kissed his shoulder in greeting, running a hand thru his dishevelled hair before checking his temperature. “That’s why it was hotter than usual today. You’ve got a slight fever.”

“I’ll call the school later.” Jongin replied, before turning back towards Kyungsoo, lifting himself on his elbows above the elder male to trail kisses from his bare chest and side of his neck. “You sure you can’t call in sick too?”

“Nope.” Kyungsoo quipped, to which Jongin dug his teeth into the shell of his ear in retaliation. “Too busy plus, I dreamt of us, you know.” He whispered, Jongin laughing low when he let out a sudden burst of air when Jongin rested his full weight on his chest.

“What about?” Jongin asked, savouring the fact that Kyungsoo was taking the time to run his fingers down the length of his spine without any regard for time, since he wouldn’t need to drop Jongin off at work. “The night we got engaged, the wedding, us in general.”

“I feel my fever suddenly spike up when you reminded me of the myriad of stuff we still need to do for the wedding.” With a disgruntled huff from Jongin, he lifted himself off of Kyungsoo and grabbed what he presumed was his own pair of underwear and slipping it on but was cut off by Kyungsoo half turned towards him and the duvet pooled around his waist.

“You sure who wanna wear that? Didn’t you stain that last night?” Which made Jongin scoff and fling the offending piece of fabric towards the older man, who merely laughed it off as he rolled out of bed, thankfully clothed in a pair of dark grey sweatpants while the younger sat wrapped in their duvet on the mattress.

“I told you to at least put on a shirt, but did you listen to me? No.”

“Just get me a pair of shorts, at least, before I freeze to death here.”

Relenting to Jongin’s request, Kyungsoo had pulled out a pair of shorts and a pullover from the dresser for Jongin before leaving the room to get himself ready for the day with a cup of coffee, and a cup of tea for Jongin, as to quote him directly as he swiftly pulled the clothes over his body, “ _Coffee would legitimately make me throw up today, so just tea for me.”_

“Two sugars?”

“And milk too, please. Thanks.” Jongin yelled out after Kyungsoo, to which Kyungsoo did get through the rest of his routine. Setting his mug on the coffee table and pressing a kiss to Jongin’s hair, Kyungsoo left for work with the younger just muttering a half-asleep goodbye from his curled position on the two-person loveseat as the front door clicked shut.

\--

The rest of Kyungsoo’s day went on rather uneventfully, compared to his evenings. Some coworkers toss him doubtful looks over the exhausted cast under his eyes, staring at them over the rim of his thin wire glasses as he sipped another cup of coffee before lunch, choosing to them push away on his table in resignation.

The junior architect fresh from the licensure exams he had been awkwardly guiding around the office and the firm had already gone to lunch, letting him off early before the brunt of the rendering had been turned over to him in a number of days, being a new addition to his and Baekhyun’s team.

Their Team Leader, Baekhyun had spent the greater hours of his morning arguing with someone over the phone—voice growing in pitch and hands flying off in every direction in frustration—who was now typing a sternly worded email on his laptop to the project engineer in front of Kyungsoo.

“Hey, Baek. Lunch?” The older man had peeked over the screen of his laptop, nodding distractedly before raising a hand at Kyungsoo. “Gimme a few minutes, just finish things over here.” He commented, to which Kyungsoo nodded to. “Gotcha. Just tell me when things are good, then we can go.”

He had instead busied himself with texting Jongin, shooting him a quick message to take his meds and eat on time and though the message had been left unread, Kyungsoo taking it in stride as shrugging it off as the other being asleep, being knocked off with cold medicine.

Waiting for Baekhyun had taken nearly ten minutes, with him taking another call with the same project engineer just to argue with him regarding ‘ _the same damned room in the blue print, no, you cannot just make revisions where you like because if you do, both of us risk not getting paid’_ and breathing deeply in order to avoid slamming the handset back onto the telephone.

“Lunch?” asked Baekhyun, smiling at him so sweetly as if he wasn’t about to throw his drawing tablet towards the nearby window mere minutes ago.

“Sure.”

Truthfully speaking, him and Baekhyun had gotten a little distant these days. He had been selected in another project with the other team leaders in the firm in a major project and admittedly, poured most of his hours there.

Sehun, the other part of their formerly three-man team, had been on leave for nearly a month now—a _paid vacation_ , mind you—with the sick days and vacation leaves he had accumulated during his two year stay in the firm.

Where exactly, Kyungsoo didn’t know—mostly because he was jealous of the possibility of the younger man lounging in an exotic island under the sun, instead of phoning suppliers with the bill of materials and trying to haggle with them like Kyungsoo had been doing recently, along with helping Baekhyun with the plans and rendering them himself.

While Sehun was charming and made that stubbornness work for him when it came to present a quotation, Kyungsoo absolutely abhorred that aspect of the job, preferring to man sites and monitoring the construction progress.

Settling on the office café instead, both males made their way to the second floor of the building, murmuring to each other about another project.

Kyungsoo smiled at Baekhyun’s retorts, chuckling at his whining that this job—his recent promotion as team leader—didn’t exactly give him any time to even savour his lunch before he had to argue with the multitude of engineers who either wanted to give him a hard time, or had the audacity to pick flaws at their design.

Kyungsoo knew that was all talk and that Baekhyun loved his job and was amazing at it, even if the older male was glaring at his salad bowl, stabbing a cherry tomato and shoving it into his mouth as he continued his tirade.

He had stolen a quick peek at his phone—still no responses from Jongin.

“Hey Baek, just need to make a call,” Kyungsoo stated, brows furrowed in concentration as he stared at the screen of his phone, getting up to head to a quieter spot before Baekhyun could even respond, frowning to himself.

All of Kyungsoo’s calls went to voice mail, Jongin’s voice repeating the same voice message even after the fourth call. _‘Hey, it’s Jongin. Sorry, I might be unavailable at the moment, but I’ll try to get back at you asap. Thanks!’_

He paced around the same square patch of carpet outside the café, his eyes glued to his shoes and his unoccupied hand poised on his hip as he recorded a message for Jongin.

“Hey babe, it’s Kyungsoo. Just calling in to check on you if you’re feeling a little better, and to remind you to eat lunch before you take any more meds. Call me when you can, okay? Love you.” Kyungsoo murmured into his phone, before tucking his phone back into his jacket as he walked back into the café to finish his food.

The older male smiled up at him as he slid into his seat, before resuming with this meal as Kyungsoo dug into his plate of pasta as well. “How was the call? You seemed stressed.” Kyungsoo shook his head, pouting unconsciously as he pushed a few pieces of penne around his plate. “Went to voicemail. Probably busy.”

“Oh.”

“I just left a message instead.”

Kyungsoo hesitated with asking what happened that brought Baekhyun’s expression about when he was outside trying to call Jongin but decided to throw all caution to the wind. This was Baekhyun—he’d understand Kyungsoo’s tact, or lack thereof, since he lacked it most of the time too.

“Sorry for leaving like that, just a little urgent. Jongin’s a little sick, so I wanted to check up on him.” Kyungsoo reasoned out, feeling a little remorseful since he did bolt out of his seat before Baekhyun could say anything to him, but the latter just shook his head, grinning as he pushed at Kyungsoo’s shoulder playfully.

“Oh, hope he gets better soon. It is starting to change seasons, just tell him to bundle up or whatever.” Baekhyun explained, already reaching over to swiftly take a bite out of Kyungsoo’s lunch, grinning at Kyungsoo’s unamused expression. “Love you, Soo. You make the best Arabiatta.”

\--

With no replies nor any returned calls from Jongin, Kyungsoo sighed in resignation before packing his things go to home. Jongin was sick, he thought, he probably just went into those twenty-hour sleep cycles once again for his body to recuperate, his phone plugged into the wall put into silent.

He’d be fine, but Kyungsoo was sure he hadn’t eaten for hours. He’d just get him some food too.

He quickly waved good bye to his co-workers, tapping Baekhyun briskly on the shoulder before tapping his ID at the office reception, sighing as soon as he got into the parking lot and pausing in his tracks for a moment to savour the chill in the air before pulling his coat tighter around himself.

Kyungsoo couldn’t wait to watch the first snow fall with Jongin, hopefully, they’d be together when it does.

When he drove home that night, Kyungsoo had remembered to get some takeout for both him and Jongin, because even he couldn’t muster the energy to put something together for dinner. He arrived in their apartment with the TV on the background, yet the volume turned down so low it was a mere hum in the background.

Kyungsoo looked around for his fiancé but was met with the sight Jongin passed out on the couch, long limbs curled into his chest with a few bits of arts and craft projects on the coffee table beside a pile of crumpled tissues, laptop laying haphazardly across his lap, thankfully closed.

Setting the food on the kitchen table and shedding his coat, Kyungsoo made his way back to the living room to smooth Jongin’s fringe away from his sweaty forehead, leaning down to press a kiss onto his still warm skin, finally rousing the younger man from his deep sleep.

His cheek had been pressed against a throw pillow, leaving a crease in its wake when he looked up at Kyungsoo through blurry eyes. The way Jongin looked a little out of it made Kyungsoo chuckle—cold medicine and extreme migraines were probably the suspect of his dishevelled and sweaty appearance.

“Soo?” Jongin rasped out, tapping the arm rests for his specs before Kyungsoo slid them on for him. “Yep. Had another one of those twenty-hour naps?” he asked, kissing Jongin’s cheek when the younger reached up to hug him. “Just fifteen hours this time.” Jongin replied, mirroring Kyungsoo’s grin when they separated.

“Feeling better? I bought dinner.”

Jongin shook his head, stretching his arms over his head and letting out a groan as his spine crackled with the action. “I feel like I need to pass on dinner tonight. I don’t think I’d be able to stomach any solid food yet.”

Kyungsoo peaked out of their bedroom, a worried expression etched on his face as he stared at Jongin in the midst of pulling a sweater over his head. “Do you want me to make you something light instead?”

“Nah. Maybe later. So how was wor—” The younger called out, before a loud sneeze cut him off, groaning at the sudden jolt of pain in his head. “Goddamnit, I feel like death.” He moaned out, shaking his head to get any sort of relief.

As he finally got changed, Kyungsoo noticed Jongin’s phone plugged on top of their dresser and checked on it if was on. Not wanting to mess with his fiancé’s privacy, Kyungsoo called Jongin into the room. “Hey, babe. Can you come into the room for minute?”

“Yep, sure.” Within seconds, the taller was in their bedroom, trying to stifle a yawn. “What’s up?”

“I was calling all day, but you didn’t pick up.” Jongin furrowed his brows at the statement, reaching over to check at his phone. “Sorry Soo, I probably didn’t hear it from the living room— _oh._ It was in airplane mode.” He trailed off awkwardly, as the continuous pinging off his phone hung awkwardly between them as Kyungsoo crossed his arms.

“I’m sorry for making you worry. I really didn’t notice it was on airplane mode when I went to plug it in this morning.” Jongin murmured apologetically, smiling sheepishly as Kyungsoo shook his head, patting him at the waist as he headed out of the room.

“It’s fine, but I did remember your tendency to sleep like the dead, so I didn’t really worry too much.” Kyungsoo replied, already heading to the kitchen but Jongin beat him there.

“Let me, and you didn’t answer my question earlier. How’s work?” He asked, yawning as his hands busied themselves with setting the table, watching Kyungsoo squint at his phone probably preoccupied with reading a few late emails. “Hey.” He called out, Kyungsoo sighing before reaching over to the takeout bags and rising on his feet to help the younger man out.

“I got it, go wash up first.” Jongin murmured, leaning in to press a short kiss on Kyungsoo’s lips before pushing him to the bathroom, to which the elder male acquiesced to.

“It’s weird combination of being both busy, and unoccupied? I don’t know. Lots of weird lulls, since the most recent team project Baekhyun, Sehun and I worked on are already under construction, so most of the talking goes to Baek, not me.” Kyungsoo explained, shrugging his shoulders at the confused furrow between Jongin’s eyes as he peeked out of the bathroom, toothbrush in hand.

“Sehun is still on vacation, Baekhyun’s constantly on the verge of a verbal argument with the project engineer, and I’m training the new employee,” The sound of running water interrupted him, before he emerged from the room with his short hair damp at the temples, wiping away at his face. “which, by the way, is actually harder than I expected. I don’t know how Baekhyun did it with me.”

Jongin had been sitting on the dining chairs while waiting, legs tucked in front of him whilst sipping on a tetrapak of chocolate milk, much to Kyungsoo’s judgment. “How’s Baekhyun-hyung? We haven’t talked in a while. Has he gotten out of that weird funk you were talking about?”

Kyungsoo slipped his glasses back on before sitting across Jongin with a pensive expression on his face, eyes uncharacteristically distant as he pondered on the topic. “I guess so. Maybe it’s just the stress of his new promotion, a lot to live up to.”

He instead busied himself with breaking his chopsticks in half, nicking a soy sauce sachet between his teeth before pouring it on the take away box of mandu. “You sure you don’t want me to make you anything light, instead of stuffing yourself with Chocolate milk.”

Jongin instead stood up to put his portion away in the fridge, shaking his head. “I’ll manage, Soo.” He said, before coming around to lean on the side of the table, reaching over to muss Kyungsoo’s hair. “I’ll just have it for lunch tomorrow.”

Kyungsoo raised a piece of mandu to Jongin’s mouth instead, prompting the younger male to eat something. “Eat. I know you live on cereal when I don’t make lunch for you at home.”

Jongin huffed at Kyungsoo’s light jab at his unhealthy eating habits, before taking the bit of mandu from Kyungsoo’s chopsticks. “I wanna go to back to bed, to be honest.”

The disappointed burst of breath the younger had let out made Kyungsoo wonder, pulling Jongin closer into his lap, who had rolled his eyes at the action but nonetheless leaned onto his shoulder, groaning at something.

“What’s wrong?”

“These are one of the instances where my height is actually an utter hindrance.” Jongin complained, relishing the deep vibrations of Kyungsoo’s laughter against his ear. “Oh, you know. Model good looks, mile long legs and a big brain to boot. What a hindrance, isn’t it?” The older murmured, tinged with sarcasm.

“You’re supposed to be nice to me. I’m sick, remember.” Jongin moaned out, much to his fiancé’s amusement. “You’re so warm, you really need to talk to our landlord and get back the money for heater maintenance or something.”

He blubbered on, trying to make himself fit into Kyungsoo’s arms and lap but failing, instead hiding his eyes into the elder’s nape, breathing deeply while Kyungsoo wrapped his arms around his waist. “That’s better.”

“Am I just a glorified space heater for you now?” Kyungsoo questioned, frowning at Jongin’s still higher than normal temperature despite his thick clothes, but Jongin merely kissed Kyungsoo on the neck in gratitude for the lazy circles being traced against his back.

“On some days, yes. Most days, you are an amazing body pillow, others, a weighted blanket.”

“Glad to be of use to you.” Both chuckled at Kyungsoo’s retorts, sitting in silence to savour each other’s presence. “I’m assuming I need to be all three today?”

“Uhuh.” Jongin replied, ungluing himself away from Kyungsoo with a great deal of reluctance. “Finish dinner first, then we can get to the intense cuddling.” He said almost jokingly, before jutting a thumb behind him to the couch. “While I clear the living room of my snot rockets and disaster of an art project for the kids.”

“Are you going to work next week?” Kyungsoo asked, chewing around a mouthful of fried rice, to which Jongin answered from the couch, chucking trash into a paperbag. “Maybe? I’d rather wait until the fever’s gone at least. I don’t want my students to get sick too.”

“Your students got _you_ sick.” Snorting over a piece of pickled radish, Kyungsoo shrugged off the obviously poisonous look Jongin had tossed him over his shoulder. “What? We all know kids are just virus incubators with their terrible habit of putting things in their mouths.”

Jongin had come around to the dining room to swat him at the back of the head in retaliation, albeit it being a weak one. “Hey!”

“I’m still probably right, though.” Kyungsoo rebutted, returning his attention to the last spoonful of rice on his plate.

“Now that I think about it,” Jongin said, before briefly ducking out of view to pick up some stray bits of paper from the carpet, “Donghyuk did have a cold last week.” He continued, before chucking his rubbish into the back in the kitchen.

Kyungsoo had already busied himself with doing the dishes, humming a John Mayer song under his breath. “See? Make sure you take some medicine before going back to bed.” He called out to Jongin who had already plucked his blanket of the couch to wrap it around himself, dragging his feet into the bedroom.

“Jongin! Meds first!” He called again, already digging into the medicine cabinet with a glass of water in one hand. Stepping into the dimly lit bedroom, the younger male already curled into ball on Kyungsoo’s side of the bed, the only light from the moon and streetlights streaming in from the windows.

“Love,” Kyungsoo said softly, sitting down beside Jongin. “Meds. Come on, drink up.”

Groaning, Jongin heaved himself up on his elbows to take the offending pill from Kyungsoo’s fingers and swallowing enough water to wash it down with a grimace. The older had merely patted his cheek with a good-natured smile.

“Now, was that so hard to swallow?” he asked, setting the glass onto the side table. “I mean, you have swallowed bigger things before.”

Apparently, Jongin had enough energy to let out an affronted gasp and push Kyungsoo away with his foot, the darker hair male laughing all the while. “You are a terrible person.” He whined out, though he pulled Kyungsoo closer to cuddle closer against his side, humming contently as he found the perfect angle.

“Take out and early bed times? Reminds me of the time we first moved in.”

Kyungsoo smiled down at Jongin, rubbing at his back. “Oh god. McDonald’s and a variety of take out for three weeks, what a joy.”

Jongin yawned, before replying. “We like chips, shut up.” He had started slurring his words, his exhaustion and persistent fever getting the better of him. “I know, but we need to start eating healthier.”

“More green stuff?”

“Yep.”

“Gross.”

“Jongin, you’re twenty-six. You teach kids that an aubergine is good for them.”

“I know it’s good for them but doesn’t mean I have to like it.” Jongin replied sleepily, head getting heavier on Kyungsoo’s chest. “God, my head hurts.”

“Go to sleep, it’ll feel better tomorrow.” Kyungsoo murmured, planting a kiss onto Jongin’s head. “Hope so. Love you, Soo. G’night.” The younger slurred, before his breathing evened out slowly.

“I love you too, Jongin.”

\--

Moving to a new house was definitely as hard as Kyungsoo’s mother had said.

Though he had organized his belongings by box and labelled everything accordingly—Jongin had opted to just stuff everything in a number of unlabelled boxes as he moved out of his old studio apartment, impatient to leave—unpacking everything and making sure that nothing had broken over the drive to their new apartment was definitely the harder part.

Even straightening up the closet was a brand-new ordeal, with trying to split the closet space and folding the clothes properly to be able to put more in the dressers. Jongin, as it turned out, was terrible at folding his clothes without wrinkling them a great deal.

And even more terrible with letting go of old, ratty clothes and mismatched socks.

Kyungsoo had to redo everything, tossing some of Jongin’s old, damaged undergarments much to the younger’s embarrassment.

They had been twenty-three and twenty-four then, when they had made the decision to move in together. Kyungsoo had dropped the topic awkwardly during Sunday brunch in a quaint café in Garusogil, Jongin staring at him with his fork frozen mid-air until the twirled pasta slipped off back onto his plate.

Kyungsoo’s breath came out stuttered—he didn’t mean to just drop it like that. Sure, they had been dating for a year and a half, and though Kyungsoo was sure Jongin was _the_ one he wanted to be with for a long time, he didn’t know if Jongin even felt that intensely for him as well.

He would punch himself in the face if ever he scared Jongin off with this sudden level of commitment, honest to god.

“Did you just ask me to move in with you?” Jongin asked flatly, while Kyungsoo’s face burned with mortification, fearing and expecting his boyfriend’s rejection. “We, uhm, could look for a place together.” Kyungsoo said, looking away from Jongin’s inquisitive gaze with an uncharacteristic shyness to his tone.

“It would save us a lot of rent, and I can drop you off at work, so you can save on bus fares.” He mumbled, pushing at his food awkwardly without looking up at Jongin just yet. “I can pick you up too if you have some late hours at the school. If you want to, of course.”

A short stretch of silence had fallen over both of them despite the mingling sounds of conversation in the café, and Kyungsoo feared that Jongin’s silence meant his unsaid refusal, but Jongin merely reached over to clasp Kyungsoo’s hand on the table, letting out an amused huff of air at the coolness of Kyungsoo’s clammy palms. “I’d love to live with you, Kyungsoo.”

Six months later, on their second anniversary of being together, they had officially moved in together into their shoebox of a one-bedroom apartment between the whirlwind of their careers and jobs.

It wasn’t how they envisioned spending their second anniversary at all. Both sweaty and exhausted from moving in and assembling most of their furniture, they had both decided to postpone any proper dinner dates until after they finished setting the place up.

Of course, setting the furniture up either was no easy feat. Though Jongin was handy enough with tools like Kyungsoo was, it was still hilarious when he fastened the legs of an Ikea chair on the wrong side to the point that Kyungsoo had laughed himself into hiccups, nearly falling off the counter as he stared at Jongin on the floor, curled away from his abomination of a dinner chair.

After that, late night food cravings had dragged them out to the nearest 7/11 to their place, after a long day of organizing, both them laughing at the selection of condoms after they got their essentials until everything was done and over with.

The 7/11, thankfully, was empty aside from them both and a worker who couldn’t care less about Jongin and Kyungsoo comparing condom and lube brands mere aisles away from him.

Jongin, ducked in front of the counter as Kyungsoo stood behind him, plucked up a small box and started laughing. “So, Soo, what are you in the mood for? Strawberry or pineapple? Anyways, how does this work?” He asked, raising up a box of supposedly vibrating ones and shaking it out around his ear.

Kyungsoo sighed, setting their basket onto the counter before nudging Jongin with his hand. “You’re a twenty-three-year-old, why are you laughing at that? Oh, don’t get those. It’s just a handful of condoms and a vibrating ring, which only last twenty minutes.”

“Ah, perfect timeframe, isn’t it?” Jongin looked up with a smirk, staring at Kyungsoo as he rolled his eyes at the comment, shushing him before he said anything more scandalous. “Kidding, we still have that rechargeable one anyways.” He muttered, returning the packages back before following Kyungsoo to the counter.

“I just remembered this girl in my org back in uni,” Jongin explained, straightening up before pulling at his wallet to pay for their stuff. “She said she didn’t understand the point of flavoured condoms, it’s not like her parts down there can taste it.”

“Down where, Jongin?” Kyungsoo asked, the curl of his grin teasing as Jongin unknowingly threw himself in this sort of joke again, laughing when his cheeks grew pinker. “Say it—”

“Nooo.” He whined, shaking his head vigorously before biting his lip to conceal a squeal, Kyungsoo’s prodding fingers digging to the ticklish skin of his waist. “You know what I mean, Soo,” Jongin cupped his hands next to Kyungsoo’s ear, whispering the word. “It’s not like her fanny can taste.”

Kyungsoo let out a snort, shaking his head before turning towards the door. “You remember the weirdest things, anyways I’m gonna get us McDonald’s. What something else aside from nuggets?”

Jongin grinned. “Nah, how about you? Want some wine?” He jutted his thumb towards the liquor aisle behind him, before staring at the quite poor selection. Kyungsoo shrugged, before leaving the store entirely. “Hmm, guess I’ll just get some.”

His gaze lowered to the racks of condoms and shrugged, pulling a familiar box and tossing it to his basket. No harm in being ready, he thought, before following Kyungsoo out into the nearby McDonalds.

They had celebrated the occasion by a sharing a cheap bottle of red wine on the tiled floors of their living room, throwing greasy chips at each other.

“Happy anniversary, Soo.” Jongin raised his plastic cup in Kyungsoo’s direction—their proper glassware lost in the sea of boxes they still haven’t unpacked yet in favour of setting the bedroom up first—his lips tinted a pale red from the wine as they split into a grin.

“Happy anniversary, indeed.” Kyungsoo bumped the side of his own plastic cup against Jongin’s, frowning at the taste before coughing. “God, this is actually terrible.” Jongin’s laughter tinkled in the air, leaning his head on Kyungsoo’s shoulder. “It is a seventeen thousand won bottle that I picked up along with some toiletries in a 7/11 while you bought dinner for us, Soo. Of course, it’s going to be terrible.”

“The beauty of adulthood—sipping seventeen thousand won wine, dipping chicken nuggets and soggy chips in barbeque sauce on our cold tiled floor, sitting in drying sweat because we don’t know how to turn on the water heater in the shower, lest we want to shower in ice cold water.” Kyungsoo spoke, sipping on his cup of wine between pauses as Jongin picked at their dinner for the night.

“I did tell you to ask the landlord how.” Pointed Jongin, smirking at him. “ _’Lest,’_ you’re starting to sound like all the early 1800’s books I had to go through in uni.”

“We don’t have Wi-Fi yet, and you did insist on bringing your whole collection here, so if I start to sound like Jane Eyre, it wasn’t of my own volition.” The younger male threw his head back in laughter, shaking his head to push his sweaty fringe away from his forehead.

“It’s a good thing we got the bed and air-conditioning up and working already, or else you could not get me to get things done here.” He murmured, going back to leaning against Kyungsoo’s shoulder.

“I asked Baekhyun and Junmyeon-hyung to come help us unpack and set up the furniture tomorrow, so I think we’ll be done by the end of this week.”

“Good god, I hope so. Just the bedroom took two days to do with just the both of us, and you took a whole day just cleaning up the closet.”

Kyungsoo reached up blindly on his shoulder to slap Jongin lightly, but it seemed more like a chastising pat on the cheek rather than an actual slap, scoffing at the accusation. “It’s not my fault you keep the remaining sock when the other one’s missing, and we need to get you some new underwear. You’re twenty-three, babe. You need better underwear.”

Jongin pouted, muttering something under his breath. “Am I the one ripping them off my legs due to impatience?”

The younger male looked up at Kyungsoo through his lashes, biting at his lower lip in barely concealed eagerness, hands already messing with the hem of the elder’s worn Nike shorts, fingers scratching over the fabric in deliberate motions.

Kyungsoo wasn’t having it though, immediately returning the gaze with a flat one of his own.

“If this is a ploy to get laid today, it’s not working Jongin. We both stink and both refuse to shower in cold water.” Kyungsoo shook his head, laughing the disappointed huff that Jongin let out before straightening up to look at him directly. “We could warm it up?”

“Jesus Christ,” Kyungsoo said, trying to control his laughter. “Shower sex? Really? We don’t have all the stuff, though.”

Jongin grinned, swatting at Kyungsoo’s thigh. “See? You’re up for it, and yet you make a show of trying to get out of it when you’re already asking if we have,” He raised his fingers to make quotation marks in the air, “the stuff. Think about it, clean-up will be easier, and you won’t have to physically haul me to the shower after we’re done.”

All he got was a shrug from Kyungsoo, choosing to down the mediocre—borderline _inedible—_ wine instead of answering his boyfriend’s question. “Yeah, I get the ease of cleaning up, but I don’t remember where I packed the stuff. Probably lost in one of the boxes that Junmyeon-hyung will choose to unpack tomorrow.”

Jongin smiled innocently, though the spark in his eye and the tone of his voice left little to the imagination. Kyungso shook his head, Jongin thought it through, and the words that left his lips confirmed his suspicions.

“I did pick something else from 7/11 aside from the wine for our anniversary.” He trailed off, making Kyungsoo burst out into laughter as soon as he understood what Jongin was insinuating, double checking the 7/11 bag sitting on the kitchen counter.

“Deodorant, shampoo, shaving cream, shower gel, condoms, and lube.” He listed, pulling the items out of the bag. “Wow, you got essentials alright, and yet you forgot to get batteries for the remotes.” Kyungsoo continued, shaking his head as he leaned on the counter and staring at Jongin still on the floor, who had a small smile on his face.

“Already fantasizing?” Crossing his arms, Kyungsoo quirked an eyebrow up at Jongin, who already made his way to him in the kitchen. “No. Just happy. Very happy.” Jongin looked almost pensive and spoke quietly, placing his hands on Kyungsoo’s waist, peering down as him. “Didn’t expect to spend our anniversary like this.”

Kyungsoo smiled, almost apologetic. “Expected a wine and dine?”

Jongin jutted his chin to the abandoned cups of wine and half empty McDonald’s paperbags on the floor. “We did that last year, and today. I just didn’t expect this all—new place, a great job, two years with you. Two years ago, I never imagined it to be like this.”

He clasped Kyungsoo’s wrists to uncross his arms and placed them around his neck, stepping closer to lift the older male up on the counter. “Didn’t expect you to be the start of all the great things in my life.”

“Nah. That’s not true.”

“When I started dating you, my life got better. Believe me.” Jongin continued, hands slipping down to rest on Kyungsoo’s thighs, fingers dangerously close to slipping up the thin cloth of his shorts.

“I’m a better person when I’m with you. Hell, I smell better ever since I’ve been with you. I used to skimp on fabric softener before, but now it’s a necessity because the smell reminds me of you.” The pad of Jongin’s thumb reached under the lens of Kyungsoo’s glasses to wipe the stray tear that fell from his eyes, the deep brown full of emotion.

“God, I love you so much. I don’t understand it.” Jongin stated, looking into Kyungsoo’s teary eyes, voice dropped to a whisper as if sharing a secret. Kyungsoo sniffed, taking his glasses off to wipe his tears away with a shaky smile.

“Stop it. You’re making me have emotions. How dare you?” came the retort from Kyungsoo, though there wasn’t any real anger in his voice, only the tremor of a rush of emotion. Kyungsoo moved his arms around Jongin’s shoulders, manoeuvring them to pull Jongin closer to kiss him.

Their lips meet—soft and chaste, yet firm, filled with such affection and promise that it takes the air from Kyungsoo’s lungs all the same as their more rushed, desperate touches. He could cry—cry harder—really, for the first time in his life, he had the one thing that he was sure of.

This relationship with Jongin was something he was desperately sure of, and he could laugh about how fast he fell for the younger like a sack of bricks. “I love you too.” Kyungsoo murmured into the fabric of Jongin’s pull over, muffling his sniffling into the thick fabric.

“Now get away from me, because I want you to clean up the food off the floor,” Kyungsoo spoke out, wiping at his eyes and cheeks before slipping his glasses back on his nose, other hand already pushing Jongin away. “while I figure out the water heater myself or give both of us blue balls trying.”

He muttered, jumping off the counter, hands reaching over to pocket the condoms and lube before walking to the bathroom with a determined air to his gait. Jongin stood awkwardly in the kitchen and merely blinked, before letting out a laugh at his boyfriend’s antics.

Kyungsoo did manage to work out the water heater an hour and a half later, though not without any mishaps, emerging from the bathroom thoroughly drenched with a small scowl on his face. Jongin looked up from the lone stool set up in the dining room, staring at Kyungsoo as he stripped his shirt off and flung it onto the floor with a loud noise resonating in the tiny bathroom. “Are you coming or not?”

Needless to say, Jongin did manage to get what he wanted that evening as they christened their bathroom.

Kyungsoo undressing him as soon as he got into arms reach, which escalated in Jongin’s heated skin pressed against the cool tiles, moans and gasps bouncing off the tiles before younger had to reach back and cease the curling fingers against prostate, shaking at the sharp nips of Kyungsoo’s lips and teeth on the skin on his neck and back.

Before Jongin even had the chance to beg for more, he was gasping against the tiles as he struggled to take lungfuls of air amidst the steam and Kyungsoo’s hard grip around his waist, knees buckling at how the elder moved slow and dirty against him, thrusts rough and determined to make him come undone.

They had both woken up to Baekhyun’s insistent knocking and Junmyeon’s affronted expression the following afternoon as soon as Kyungsoo swung the door open to greet them, Jongin still knocked out in bliss in their bedroom. “Kyungsoo, what is _that_ on your neck?”

Kyungsoo shrugged. “I dunno, probably something I lifted yesterday that left marks.”

Baekhyun looked up at him in sceptically, setting down the takeout bags on their kitchen counter before pushing Kyungsoo’s jaw to the side to inspect it. “Was that thing you lifted yesterday called Jongin? Because those are scratches, and I know so.”

Turned out, Jongin managed to leave four lines of scratches when he reached back over his shoulder to tangle his fingers in Kyungsoo’s wet hair, grip slipping down to scratch down the elder’s nape and neck as Kyungsoo fucked him into the tiled walls with the water beating down their shoulders.

Coughing from the coffee that went down the wrong pipe, Junmyeon shook his head, rubbing at his temples. “I guess I don’t need to ask how your anniversary played out in the middle of moving house.”

Junmyeon nearly spat his iced Americano on Kyungsoo’s new couch at his next statement, while Baekhyun on the other hand, laughed so loud until he grew pink from exertion, even waking up Jongin in the next room. “Well, the broker wasn’t lying when he said that water pressure in this building was great.”

\--

Jongin had woken up before Kyungsoo did on a Saturday—a rather rare occurrence—smiling from their dining table as he sipped on a cup of tea gingerly, Kyungsoo squinting hard enough to make out the vague shapes of the younger’s laptop open on the table, a pair of thin wire glasses hanging on the tip of Jongin’s nose.

“Good morning.” Jongin said, weirdly chipper.

“Morning.” Kyungsoo rasped out as he headed to the bathroom to freshen up, his voice scratchier than usual but none of the tell-tale signs of an emerging cold, just bone deep exhaustion from a week’s worth of work.

As Kyungsoo squeezed out a bit of toothpaste on his toothbrush, he leaned against the bathroom door as he brushed at his teeth with a frown on his face that Jongin actually acknowledged. “Why are you frowning? That’s not your regular ‘ _I can’t see shit’_ frown.”

The sound of running water cut the conversation short as Kyungsoo hurriedly spat into the sink and washed his face, opting to walk into the kitchen to make himself a cup of coffee without his glasses.

Which turned out to be a bad idea when he banged his hip into the corner of the counter. “Oh, motherfucker.” He hissed, rubbing at the sore spot while Jongin only laughed, pushing him onto a chair once he stopped giving the offending piece of furniture the most poisonous stink eye he could muster.

“Let me,” Jongin offered, pushing Kyungsoo’s glasses to rest on his nose, kissing him on the temple as he offered the cup of coffee to Kyungsoo before sitting down beside him. “Feel better?”

“Little bit. Thank you.” Kyungsoo sipped gratefully at the bittersweet liquid in his cup, returning Jongin’s kiss on the temple with one on the cheek. “What are you doing so early at eleven am?”

Jongin turned the laptop a little bit in his direction, showing him the myriad of tabs on venues, themes and other wedding necessities he was still looking up. “I dunno. Didn’t seem right to get in touch with a planner without having an idea on what I want.”

Choosing to tuck his left leg under his right knee, Kyungsoo leaned his head against Jongin, scrunching his cheek away from the too long strands of the younger’s hair. “We just got engaged five months ago. You’re terribly excited.” He murmured, sighing at the arm resting warmly on his shoulder.

“Can’t hurt to be ready, yanno. I woke up early today, and I didn’t know what to do. Next thing I knew I was looking up colour schemes. What do you think of green and silver?”

A thoughtful pause while Kyungsoo’s continued to sip at his coffee methodically hung over them, before Kyungsoo hummed a reply. “Too Slytherin.”

“Red and gold? Oh. That’s just incredibly jarring to the eyes. Too Gryffindor.”

“Navy Blue and Maroon? How about that?” Jongin’s fingers immediately whizzed through the keyboard in attempts to show Kyungsoo the combination in an app on his laptop. “Not too jarring, but enough of a contrast, you know?” Jongin bumped his chin onto the crown of Kyungsoo’s head to whisk him back into reality.

“You do look good in red. It looks nice, yeah.”

Jongin stopped typing, heaving a deep breath before fidgeting with the nearby pen and twirling it between his index and middle fingers. “Do you think I’m rushing into things like I usually do?”

“It’s our wedding, Jongin. I would be worried if you hadn’t started planning anything yet.” Kyungsoo replied, straightening up on his seat. “I mean, not to brag, but my vows are already done.” Jongin could only chuckle at his words, shaking his head.

“And you said you weren’t rushing.”

Kyungsoo pulled one of Jongin’s hands and intertwined their fingers together, resting it down on his lap. “Do you have an ideal date already? I think that’s one place to start so we can choose venues.”

“Nope. I made a playlist instead of thinking about that, to be honest with you.”

“Glad to know honesty is one of the pillars of our relationship,” Setting the half empty cup on the table, Kyungsoo pushed his chair back to stand in the middle of their dining and living room, extending a hand to Jongin. “In my defence though, you’re a much better planner than I am.”

“That playlist better be the best I’ve ever heard, because we’ll be using that on our real wedding.” He taunted, much to the sudden blanching of Jongin’s face. “God forbid, because I hope you like some nice trap and dubstep at the reception.”

“Are you going to do some crumping in front of your niece and nephew again? Because you know I won’t stop you with your art.” Came the teasing jab from Kyungsoo.

“Hush up. That was just at my sister’s wedding. Never again.”

A few taps of the keyboard later and pretty soon the soft notes of a familiar song resonated from Jongin’s beat up laptop into their living room, Kyungsoo’s hands coming down to rest on the slender dip of Jongin’s waist as the younger’s arms came up to rest on his shoulders.

They had soon settled to a gentle sway to the Train song playing the background, Jongin soon standing closer into Kyungsoo’s embrace as Kyungsoo sang along to the song, humming over a few lyrics he couldn’t remember.

“Slow dancing on our linoleum floors without breakfast. We are just amazing at planning this wedding stuff, aren’t we?” Jongin murmured, delighting in the low rumble of Kyungsoo’s laughter against his chest.

“The greatest.”

“You know I love you, Kyungsoo. We don’t need to rush anything, right? We can take our sweet time on planning things—God knows weddings are expensive.”

“This is why you’re the smart one in this relationship, but it’s true, though. No need to rush.” The songs from Jongin’s playlist had soon turned into white noise, merging into a jumble of soft notes and melodies, a vocalist crooning sweet nothings from Jongin’s speakers behind both of them, yet they still maintained the slow slay and warm embrace.

“We can go at our own pace. I’m not going anywhere, because god knows you can’t get rid of me at this point.”

\--

Saying _I love you_ to each other was easy for both Jongin and Kyungsoo after four years of being together.

It was as simple as saying hello, good morning, good night to both them.

Sometimes Kyungsoo marvelled at how uninhibited and how often they said, those words to each other as easy as saying the time of day when the first he had said it, Kyungsoo had been nursing a burning fever and high off cold medication, almost throwing up over himself and his bed covers to in an attempt to utter those words to the younger.

And boy, when he legitimately said _I love you, Jongin_ in the midst of the other wiping him down in a desperate attempt to lower his temperature, Jongin positively looked terrified when the gravity of his confession had finally sunk in.

In the haze of his fever and medication induced haziness, Kyungsoo had been desperately thinking of ways he could take it back, but by some stroke of luck, he had gathered his senses enough to blubber out that Jongin didn’t need to say it back if he didn’t feel the same way—his own wounded pride be damned in the process.

It took Jongin exactly three months later to say it back.

Kyungsoo was hours late to a date. Terribly late. Like two and a half hours late to their reservation.

Though his lateness had an actual legitimate excuse of being out on site earlier within the afternoon, the pouring rain had also hindered himself from over speeding down the expressways in an attempt to save face, if he still had any at this rate.

Jongin had texted him almost thirty minutes that he was instead going back home before the rain got worse, reassuring him that they could just reschedule their date instead. Kyungsoo wanted to reply that no, I’m on my way, but the bright red lights moving slowly in front of his own car quickly deterred him from doing that.

He had instead headed to Jongin’s apartment at nine in the evening, standing in front of Jongin’s door soaked to the bone, arms filled with a multitude of things. When he managed to buzz Jongin’s doorbell, the younger had been greeted with Kyungsoo carrying a single sunflower, a paper bag of what seemed to be KFC and his work bag awkwardly dangling on one elbow, looking severely apologetic.

“I’m sorry for coming up unannounced. I know there is no excuse for me being this late, but I didn’t expect the plan visit to take that long and then traffic was really bad, I couldn’t find a parking space that was near enough and obviously, I forgot my umbrella in the car, so I ran here,” Kyungsoo blurted out in a rush—Jesus Christ, even his glasses were fogging up—in fear of Jongin slamming the door in his face.

Jongin stood there, pensive and yet, still surprised as all hell, because he never even expected Kyungsoo make it up to him over a missed date; much less this quickly, so why not?

Using a knuckle to push the specs sliding off his nose, Kyungsoo grinned at Jongin in an attempt to shake off the awkward air between them. “I really am sorry, and I bought your favourites?” He said, dangling the paper bag between them.

The younger reached out to pry the paper bag of food from Kyungsoo’s arms and disappeared into his apartment, quickly coming back to the front door with a towel in hand. He wrapped the older man in the towel, work bag and flower still in his arms, and kissed him so deeply, leaving Kyungsoo legitimately breathless over the whole turn of events.

Jongin pulled away with a dopey grin on his lips as he smoothed Kyungsoo’s damp fringe with one hand, pulling him into the apartment and closing the door behind them. “I love you.” He said, leaving Kyungsoo shivering and gaping in his entryway like an idiot.

Unable to conceal his grin over having finally heard those words from Jongin, Kyungsoo let himself be dried off rather aggressively by the younger man with the ends of his towel digging into his head.

“You are an actual idiot,” Jongin exclaimed, both exasperated and endeared over Kyungsoo’s actions. “I completely understand, and you didn’t have to go through all this to apologise. You could’ve just called, and I would’ve forgiven you just the same.” He explained, while Kyungsoo merely stared at him with barely concealed glee in his eyes.

“And miss those words? Never.”

“So, you had an ulterior motive?” Jongin narrowed his eyes, his scrubbing of Kyungsoo’s hair get a tad too harsh, making the other wince.

“Not really, I just wanted to say sorry. I really half expected you to slam the door in my face.”

\--

Apart from the domestic bliss their lives provided, both Jongin and Kyungsoo were still young professionals trying to get through their respective company ladders, which meant burn outs were a common occurrence in their households.

For Kyungsoo, it meant random bouts of irritability over small things. His tablet pen not working, a long rending session with way too many lags than his patience could handle, or even just unable to draw a passably straight line before he ultimately just pushed his work away to do smash some buttons on their PS4 or mere stress eating.

For Jongin, however, it meant periods of being distant. It was inevitable, him being a perfectionist never satisfied with his work, Jongin’s burnouts almost always resulted in him burying himself even deeper into his work without the familiar spark of excitement he held for it, working without fail to the point of even missing dinners.

Of course, this roused a sense of concern in Kyungsoo since Jongin rarely had his burn outs, but when they came around and crashed on even one of the most workaholic people on the planet like Jongin—they crashed in hard.

When he noticed Jongin angrily typing something into this laptop, immediately followed by repeated, furious presses of the back space, Kyungsoo knew this was one of those days of bad mental head spaces again and reached out.

Standing up from his own desk, he walked towards Jongin and tried to see what was causing the frustration from his fiancé in the brunt of his work. “Hey, you okay? You missed lunch.” Kyungsoo murmured, reaching over to pull Jongin’s shoulders back, pressing his fingers on Jongin’s nape, then sliding up to his scalp in an attempt to calm the budding stress in his muscles.

Jongin leaned back, humming at Kyungsoo’s touch until his head touched the older’s stomach. “I’ll eat later. This part is just really killing my, uh, I don’t know? Work sequence.” Kyungsoo chuckled, bending at the waist to plant a kiss on Jongin’s brow. “Maybe you just need a little bit of a snack break.”

“I’ll manage, Soo.” Kyungsoo’s fingers lingered on the thick wool of Jongin’s knit cardigan—well-loved and over worn at home—before pulling away to resume his own work on the pending revisions on his and Baekhyun’s newest project.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Jongin ruffle his own hair impatiently and the seed of worry quickly rooting itself into Kyungsoo’s chest with little to no difficulty with the way Jongin’s stressed energy had been cultivating it.

Yet, Kyungsoo feels helpless.

This is a matter that concerned Jongin’s mental wellbeing, and well, that was a matter that Jongin preferred handling by himself, and Kyungsoo understood his place, and he understood that there are some things that Jongin wanted to deal alone.

So, he tries to help in small ways.

He reminds him to eat dinner, taking the initiative to make small snacks for Jongin when he gets into the mood of suddenly waking up in the middle of the night because of missing dinner.

Reminds him to take showers, pulling his head on his lap so he can brush his hair or wiping Jongin down when the younger wasn’t up for even leaving the bed to clean up.

Kyungsoo reminds Jongin that his arms were always going to be open for Jongin, no matter what happened, that he would drop his work without hesitation if need be just to help him.

And he knew.

Kyungsoo knew that.

And Kyungsoo also knew that Jongin was grateful for his efforts.

Jongin was fresh out of the shower, dressed in a familiar Nike hoodie that Kyungsoo recognised was his before the younger slumped over him, arranging their limbs together on the small couch Kyungsoo was currently lying on, busy with another Netflix series on his iPad.

“Hey.”

“Hi,” Kyungsoo offered, “How are you feeling?”

“Cold, but better.” Jongin replied, sighing into Kyungsoo’s chest. “I love you so much.”

The older smiled, wrapping his arms around Jongin’s shoulders and letting his legs splay open to accommodate his weight, reaching over his discarded towel by the armrest to help dry the younger’s still damp hair.

Jongin blinked at the few strands of hair tickling his eyelids, pushing them away with an impatient flick of his head before he scooted up to bury his face into Kyungsoo’s neck. “You put up with me and all this, all the time.” He confessed into the collar of Kyungsoo’s tee, breathing steadily as comforting circles were traced down the length of his spine.

“I know you can’t help that. You don’t need to hide things from things from me because I’ll always try to understand it, and if I can’t, well, I just have to have faith on you, right?” Kyungsoo explained, grinning down at Jongin and shrugging his shoulders. “Plus, you put up with me too. I know I’ve been too busy lately.”

Jongin smiled up at him, small and unsure as he looked up at Kyungsoo, whose slow lazy circles on his back making him drowsy. He reached over to touch Kyungsoo’s face with a gentle hand, fingertips lingering on his brows before his thumb caressed the soft skin of Kyungsoo’s cheek.

“Never leave me, Soo.”

His eyes were pensive, almost tinged with melancholy when he said those words, as if he was almost afraid of voicing his inner fears. It had been the saddest Kyungsoo had seen Jongin in their four-year relationship, and it ultimately unnerved Kyungsoo to see him like this.

So scared, so unsure, like the effortless easy-going confidence Jongin had had all his life had dissipated in a snap.

Perhaps Jongin had just been afraid that even Kyungsoo’s seemingly endless patience would have an end, and despite the ring on his left hand, would cease all his attempts of understanding him, and ultimately ending their relationship.

Of course, Kyungsoo had no such intentions.

He had been there the first time it happened—when Jongin vehemently pushed him away in place of dealing with it alone—and this obviously wasn’t going to be his last.

Kyungsoo’s lips curled slightly as the corners, hand stilling against the warm cotton on Jongin’s back, but he didn’t get tired of trying to convince Jongin that he was here to stay, in all the highs and lows of their relationship.

Through thick and thin, in sickness and in health, Kyungsoo promised.

He reached to smooth Jongin’s damp fringe away from his forehead, craning his head down to press his lips on it. “Never. I’ll never leave.”

“Even when things get hard? Even when these episodes last too long?”

“I’ll love you despite it all. Even when you’re cranky in the morning, even when you hog of the blankets.” The beginnings of a smile were starting to appear on the sides of Jongin’s mouth as Kyungsoo spoke.

“Even when I get the end of your very rare anger. You could lose the super model looks and suddenly be four feet tall tomorrow, and I would love you nonetheless.” Kyungsoo stated, hoping that his words show the entire spectrum of his sincerity towards taking care of Jongin. “I hope you never forget that, babe.”

They were both young, but both Jongin and Kyungsoo saw the image of a relationship that simply didn’t go against the times and lack of love, the sort that ended up in expensive legal fees and long divorce hearings in Kyungsoo’s parents.

They were aware of how a relationship pulled apart by stress, anger and resentment looked, and how they managed to go through a behemoth of a hurdle in Jongin’s parents.

Kyungsoo was aware that he was promising the world to Jongin, and Jongin the universe to Kyungsoo if he desired it—both promising things to each other that were way out of their earthly and humanly bounds—perhaps they were too far gone in their dreams to realise the gravity of their promises at this point of their life, but Kyungsoo had this peculiar determination to make it all a reality.

Perhaps he just wanted to prove that him and Jongin would make it all though the odds.

Perhaps he just wanted to spite his parents, who never had much faith in his relationship with the younger man from the get go, but he knew that was so far from the truth.

He had so much faith in Jongin, and in their relationship, and that’s all he could ever offer.

Kyungsoo had long come into terms that he loved Jongin despite of all his imperfections and sudden impulses, and what he could offer and what he lacked. It didn’t make sense to Kyungsoo—this intensity—at first, he didn’t feel the need to unravel it, because he loved Jongin, simple as that.

And he wanted some semblance of forever with him.

Sometimes, Kyungsoo would warn himself. That this was all too much wishful thinking, that the fates were fickle, that everything and everyone could change in a moment’s notice.

That the promises they both had set in stone would somehow, someday, would break as soon as the stones turned into dust.

Even he was well aware that he was thinking way too far into the future.

What mattered was what he had with Jongin right now, and that he wanted his life with Jongin, that he was well aware of whatever may come in their way.

But even Kyungsoo could see that everything in their lives had been smooth sailing, and that absolutely terrified him to his very core, because it meant that whatever divine being out there hadn’t decided to meddle with their share of earthly affairs.

It terrified Kyungsoo, because he was aware that the universe could give you all you’ve ever dreamed of for the heavy price of whatever you already possessed, because he wasn’t sure if would be able to handle losing anything at this point of his life, especially Jongin.

Time would tell.

Kyungsoo would never leave unless Jongin told him to, but until then, he promised that he wouldn’t, right?

In the midst of all this, he never noticed that Jongin had never promised the same thing back to him, but no matter, he did place his faith in Jongin.

Time would tell, indeed.

Kyungsoo grinned as Jongin wiggled up to kiss him, tangling his slender fingers in dark locks before mirroring his grin, eyes bright despite the dark circles brough about by stress and numerous sleepless nights.

“I love you so much. Never forget that.” Jongin said, tipping his head to the side before bumping his nose gently with Kyungsoo’s before ultimately sealing their lips once more, longer this time.

But Kyungsoo could never tell why it felt like a goodbye.

\--

With the amazing tale of how they met and got together through Kyungsoo’s then boss, Baekhyun, at the same bar Kyungsoo had lovingly swung his fist at the curve of Jongin’s cheek, and had emerged through it with a second, third, and fourth date until the night Kyungsoo had stood in front of Jongin’s apartment door, soaked to the bone and a half crushed sunflower to his chest, Jongin and Kyungsoo didn’t take a long time to take to committed life.

And that committed life suited them.

Jongin and Kyungsoo seemed like the perfect couple—both good looking, charming, and mild mannered, a pay check waiting to be deposited into their bank accounts at the end of the month, and the prospect of finally living their lives together just seemed to be a dream wrapped in a pretty red satin bow that were all too eager to unravel.

It just seemed too good to be true—and they were determined it milk that honeymoon period for all it was worth and living together just seemed to be the thing to top it all off for both of them.

Living together often posed as a new couple’s downfall—too many unfavourable habits to shake off, the inability of getting used to sharing their personal space in a shoebox of an apartment, even getting the wrong kind of orange juice, or even getting orange juice at all, amongst other things—but Jongin and Kyungsoo took to living together like two perfectly matched jigsaw pieces, effortlessly melding into their current life and painting a clearer image of a future together.

Living together it seemed, was an art they had both excelled at despite being together for only two years, and under the same roof for a quarter of that.

They always seemed to remember to get the milk and eggs before they were asked to, to take the garbage out on of their own volition, and Kyungsoo had the foresight to never let Jongin do the laundry alone after the slight fiasco of almost washing a stray maroon sock with Kyungsoo’s load of white dress shirts.

Kyungsoo knew to clean up after a long day of preliminary sketches on his journal before Jongin hovered over him with the vacuum, moaning about his eraser shavings on the tiled floor, and in turn, Jongin stayed far, far away from the older man’s tech pens for anything other than Kyungsoo’s architectural work.

Jongin learned that the hard way of watching Kyungsoo nearly tear his own hair out that the sight of a dropped .2 pen and its bent nib in the middle of a caffeine induced craze at three in the morning.

Perhaps the secret to all of it was establishing your needs and making them known to the other person and coming up on an agreement on who got what, and ultimately sticking to that.

Jongin preferred to bask in the afternoon sun in the weekends as he got over things he needed for his classes in the following weeks, while Kyungsoo preferred the bright lights under the dining room table when he actually brought work home.

They preferred their own working spaces, but Jongin definitely preferred lounging on Kyungsoo as soon as the topic landed on lazing around in the late hours of the morning in the weekends or evening during work nights, at least one limb draped over the elder’s as they sat and consumed whatever show their cable had on at that hour.

It took a few weeks to getting used to their new set up—Jongin fondly recalls Kyungsoo getting up in the middle of the night, blindly fumbling for his glasses, picking up his discarded clothes off the floor, mumbling to himself about need to go home to get ready for work, only to pulled back to bed by Jongin with a laugh, “ _You are home, dummy,_ ”—but it was easy to fall into their new rhythm.

But even they had their fair share of arguments and petty squabbles.

Some small, like forgetting to refill the ice trays. Forgetting to take out the trash. Getting the mail from the mail box.

Some bigger, where often times Kyungsoo’s vehement avoidance of confrontation and tendency to supress his anger led to a number of issues being swept under the rug and behind the guise of Kyungsoo shaking his head, lips pressed into an impression of a smile as he said, “ _No, it’s alright_.” Or “ _Don’t worry about it, it’s no big deal. I’ll handle it.”_

All in an attempt to never have a major argument with Jongin.

This led to Jongin’s rather unrelenting honesty to bulldoze over his decisions to keep mum on things some of the time, though some of which were in reason.

But some, were, a little too much.

Kyungsoo, despite the notoriously private person he was, actually took the time to socialise when invited to things or events. Company luncheons, client meetings, Jongin’s PTA meetings, or wherever the unnecessary small talk was a necessity.

What he absolutely hated other than poppycock hubbub in crowded room, was poppycock hubbub used in an attempt to flirt with him.

Now, Kyungsoo knew he was attractive—how else was he able to keep Jongin’s attention after that faithful evening of celebrating Jihyun’s promotion as an Interior Designer and landing a punch on Jongin’s face if he wasn’t—but he never quite mastered the ability to ‘ _smile and slip away’_ like Sehun did when sober, he was more partial to just not responding to the attention until they got the hint merely from his stare.

Most times it did wonders in driving the unnecessary crowd away; the way Kyungsoo slowly crossed his arms immediately poised his body language to explicitly say that no, he was not at all interested, but ugh, there were still some people who seemed undeterred about that.

This was a persistent one, he thought, taking his intentions to get away wrong to the point of tailing him to the quieter corners of Chanyeol’s crowded house warming party.

Buttering them up with compliments until he got a free drink was Baekhyun’s game, so no.

But no matter how he poised himself, this guy just couldn’t— _wouldn’t_ —take the hint, even with his dead pan face and unresponsiveness, he was provided information that he couldn’t really care less about.

Watching concrete set was more interesting than this…person.

Kyungsoo was not a rude person by any means, but he had seriously contemplated swallowing the lukewarm jack in his glass with no regard for the burn down his throat just to have an excuse to wiggle away, but he had seen Jongin at the corner of his eye and the younger man was already on his way to approach him.

Jongin made his way slowly towards Kyungsoo, smiling at the other person before them as he slung an arm over his unimpressed boyfriend’s shoulders, offering him a new, cold drink with a wink. “Can I help you?” came the almost angry question thrown Jongin’s way, the other man clearly not amused at someone more attractive snatching up his prospect.

“Thanks for keeping my boyfriend company,” Jongin grinned, all suave and with a touch of arrogance that even Kyungsoo had to roll his eyes at, “So sorry about that, I was being toured around by the owner while forgetting to take the designer along for it, but by the looks of it, you clearly didn’t have it in you to even pique his interest.”

Kyungsoo stood there stunned, watching Jongin and his brutal honesty as he gave the man—the dull dobber, really—the tongue lashing of the century over the rim of his thin wire glasses.

Turned out, it was a good idea to pick fights when your friend was the honest, because if Chanyeol hadn’t thrown out the other person, Kyungsoo and Jongin would’ve had to spend the rest of their night in the ER, and Jongin would have to come to work at the preschool with a black eye and a broken wrist.

Though crisis averted, Kyungsoo still found himself severely unamused over the whole thing on their drive home, shaking his head at Jongin, sitting sullenly at the passenger seat with a hand over his mouth.

“That went well.” Kyungsoo said flatly, calmly toeing his shoes off by the cabinet and switching to his slippers.

Jongin had hung up his coat on the hooks behind the door, lest he wanted to make the elder unhappier with the abrupt end of their night, before heading to their bedroom. “Sure. Yeah.”

“I could’ve handled things, you know.” The older man stated, quietly though nothing got by Jongin just that easy.

A frown quickly made its way on Kyungsoo’s face as Jongin emerged from their room in a sweater and a pair of boxers, a scandalised expression deep into the furrow of his brow before he burst out.

“That guy was harassing you, Soo. What was I gonna do? Stand there while you stood uncomfortably like that the whole night?”

“He was going to lose interest anyways, hell, I wasn’t even listening to him. You think I didn’t notice the fact that I was being hounded like that and let it go?” The older said, brushing gently against Jongin’s shoulder as he moved to their bedroom to change out his clothes that stunk of liquor and beer.

The taller stared up at Kyungsoo from his seat on the couch, long legs strewn across the other arm rest, pursing his lips at the taut line of hesitation on Kyungsoo’s naked shoulders as the elder male pulled a shirt over his head and met eyes with him from the bedroom.

“Sometimes you gotta let me decide on how to do things before making your own decisions.” Kyungsoo reasoned out, the closest he’s ever gotten to voicing his legitimate concerns to Jongin.

Jongin opened his mouth to speak, but Kyungsoo cut him off, faltering in his temporary rush of bravery and immediately clamming up.

“Anyway, its fine. Forget I even said that.” He said, walking back out into the living room. “I just didn’t have the energy to deal with that guy, so I ignored him. I really appreciate what you did, but you didn’t have to.” Kyungsoo reasoned out, shoulders dropping as he stood in front of Jongin.

“Let’s just put this behind us, alright? I’m going to get ready for bed.” Leaning down, he pressed a kiss onto Jongin’s thankfully unmarred cheekbone. “Remember to drink some water before going to bed, so you won’t get a headache tomorrow.”

Jongin stared at him for a few seconds, before nodding, and slowly, the tension fizzled out.

That wasn’t the last of Jongin’s hard hitting and rather rash honesty, and Kyungsoo’s tendency to swipe anything under the rug. Not at all.

Don’t get Kyungsoo wrong either—he loved Jongin’s honesty, admired it even.

It helped a great deal during the early steps in their dating process, when Kyungsoo was less than terrified to move too fast. And his confidence had been one of the things Kyungsoo was attracted to, because it was rare to see someone to comfortable in their own skin and incredibly self-aware of his skills.

Not necessarily a bad thing, but Jongin had the tendency to be too much. Too honest, too confident at times. Even at the expense of Kyungsoo’s own boundaries.

Perhaps, Jongin didn’t quite understand that he often tiptoed the thin line of being independent and self-sufficient and being plain selfish.

Maybe Kyungsoo just needed to quit nit-picking, and practice proper communication. Only problem was, he wasn’t exactly sure where he stood the ground on being the bigger person in this relationship, or if he was just on some false moral high ground for choosing to silence himself, all in a sad attempt to avoid dealing with a fight with Jongin.

After all, both shared a streak of stubbornness a kilometre long.

Not that he was counting or keeping score of any grievances, but it happened all too often, that he chose to keep mum rather than hold Jongin accountable for his actions.

Kyungsoo just forgave and forgave. It’s what he did because he loved Jongin. Loving Jongin meant that he had to be understanding, he had to take everything in stride, accept everything and support Jongin’s actions. That was Kyungsoo’s idea of love. That was the vision of affection he was exposed to from a young age.

That forgiveness guaranteed the tenure of a relationship—that forgiveness guaranteed the nights that he could Jongin hold in his arms as they fell asleep and the mornings he woke with the younger man’s face in front of his.

Jongin was the final jigsaw to the closest thing Kyungsoo had to a perfect puzzle, a picture-perfect life. He was terrified that one wrong move could drive Jongin to turn away from him, ultimately uprooting himself from Kyungsoo’s life because Kyungsoo’s mistakes didn’t fit in his puzzle anymore.

If that’s what it took, he’d forgive. Kyungsoo forgave, again and again.

Small fights were quelled with Kyungsoo’s calm demeanour, his deep voice shushing the budding seed of contempt between them, as if his attempts of smothering that spark with a rag could stop it.

It was only a matter of time until it backfired on him, of course, until he couldn’t help not forgiving anything anymore.

The first time it felt like he was being too forgiving, Kyungsoo had immediately shook the thought away from his head like he had been splashed with cold water. Kyungsoo was efficient. He was the calm one, the level headed one, why was he overthinking things and being too attached?

He had reasoned that Jongin needed his space after the turbulent months of moving in together, that Jongin needed to go back to his sole identity as Jongin outside their relationship.

His identity without Kyungsoo.

Kyungsoo understood wholeheartedly—he was and adult, absence made the heart fonder and what not, that this would be healthy for both of them—but he wished that that argument didn’t spiral out of control that much, but even Kyungsoo’s lost his temper that night.

Come to think of it, he was just being pretty overprotective. Kyungsoo forgot that Jongin clearly was still his own person, that even though they came home to each other at the end of the day, they still needed space.

It had just been a small get together between Jongin and friends from university, after all.

When Jongin had texted Kyungsoo after lunch, telling him that he didn’t need to pick Jongin up after work since he’ll be out for dinner with some friends that evening, Kyungsoo couldn’t help but feel hurt.

The gesture of honesty was very much well appreciated—Jongin was truly as honest as they come—but Kyungsoo couldn’t help but feel stupid in the middle of the super market, picking out some ingredients for a surprise dinner he planned before leaving to a week-long business trip to Jeju to monitor a development with Sehun, set to leave on Sunday morning.

He even took the rest of afternoon off to plan it, what an idiot.

Kyungsoo stood in the middle of the fresh produce aisle, dumbfounded at the text he just read with his phone on one hand and the other pausing mid motion from grabbing a carrot.

He had ended up calling Jongin, who had answered after the second ring in the middle of his classes, the chatter of small children loud in the background before it became muffled, the door clicking softly behind Jongin. “Hey babe, did you get my message?”

“Yeah. I thought that was gonna be next week? Is that the same one with Taemin and your other friends?” Kyungsoo asked, leaning his elbows against the trolley.

“Yep. Dinner and drinks with my old dance team.”

“Oh.”

“Oh? Are you okay, hyung? Is there something wrong?” Jongin asked lowly at the sudden change of tone in Kyungsoo’s voice. “No, no. It’s nothing, it’s just that I have that business trip next week, right? I thought we could have a date night or sorts before I left on Sunday.” Kyungsoo confessed, shaking his head before shrugging his shoulders, proceeding to just continue with his grocery shopping.

By the gasp that Jongin had let out, the complete change of plans was entirely a surprise.

“Oh, hyung. I’m so sorry.” Jongin breathed out, and for half a second, Kyungsoo had a small spark of hope that Jongin would choose to spend time with him, but no. “It’s just that Taemin called me just a few minutes ago that he needed to go back to Japan tomorrow, and he really wanted to hang out—”

Kyungsoo shook his head, pausing in his tracks before the scales. “Jongin—baby, no, it’s alright. I didn’t make plans with you, and Taemin did. It’s fine.” There were the magic words yet again, making their appearance.

Jongin briefly stopped speaking on the phone, before gasping again. “Are you in Costco right now? Oh my god, I really ruined your surprise, haven’t I?”

“Hey, it’s fine. I’ll just make you some stuff you can reheat while I’m gone, so you’re not off ordering take away every day.”

“Are you sure, hyung?”

A spark of hesitation hindered Kyungsoo from answering immediately before he caught himself. “Yep. Definitely sure.”

“We could have that date night on Saturday, if you’d like? I’ll make it up to you, hyung.”

“No need. Just text me when you’re on your way home.” Kyungsoo ran a hand through his hair, pulling the phone away from his lips to let out the sigh he was holding. “I should go, I’m still looking for something. You should too, your students must be looking for you.”

“Yeah, okay, hyung. I love you.”

“I love you too, be safe.”

Kyungsoo found himself in a Costco, lost from pushing his trolley randomly through about the store and staring at the towering racks of spices in front of him. Sighing again, he let out a shaky breath.

He shouldn’t feel hurt, not even a little bit, not even at all.

He had ended up finishing his trip to the grocery and drove home alone sullenly and proceeded with cooking to get his mind out of it, but even one of his favourite hobbies couldn’t shake him off.

Setting the spatula down, he sighed and decided to call up Sehun at the office. _‘Hey hyung, what’s up?’_

“Let’s have dinner, I know a new Japanese place.”

_‘I thought it was date night with Jongin?’_

“Eh.” Kyungsoo shrugged, turning around to lean against the sink. “Change of plans. He’s off having dinner with friends.”

 _‘So, you wanted to have dinner with friends too?’_ Sehun teased, before he paused, sipping at something. ‘ _Can we bring Baekhyun-hyung?’_

“Yeah, why not? I’ll text you the address.”

‘ _Cool, hyung says he’s got the first round of drinks covered.’_ Sehun snickered, before Baekhyun’s voice can be heard in the background. _‘What drinks? Why are you making plans with me without me knowing?’_

Sehun said something inaudible at Baekhyun, who had begrudgingly agreed to the plans after. _‘Alright, fine. I got the first round. See you, Soo.’_ Baekhyun said over Sehun.

_‘See you, hyung.’_

Jongin had a life outside their relationship, he didn’t mind that. All Kyungsoo asked was for Jongin to text him to let him know that he was on his way home, but Kyungsoo had already had dinner with Sehun and Baekhyun, spent the remainder of the night drinking with them until midnight with not one text.

He knew it was fun to catch up with old friends, Kyungsoo had his own fair share of friends from his old drama club in university but couldn’t Jongin have spared a minute or two to text him just to quell the worry in his chest? Despite being tipsy and absolutely nauseous due to his head being pressed against the pole he was holding on to, he had sent Jongin a text.

Three stations later, not one text.

Their apartment had been devoid of Jongin when he had come home, even when Kyungsoo had been slumped over on the couch, nursing a glass of orange seltzers to avoid a deadly hangover the following morning, still no text.

All he wanted to know was if Jongin was fine, or if he need to be picked up, so he could stop worrying. One text, that was all he wanted.

1:30 am—no reply.

2:03 am—no reply.

4:55 am—no reply.

With his mood soured by a bad headache and the lack of sleep, Kyungsoo sat on the couch, cradling his head on one hand as he watched the dark sky outside the window get tinged with pink as the sun rose.

At around 6 am, Kyungsoo had managed to doze off against the arm rest but the sudden click of the lock opening had stopped him from dozing off. He heard indistinguishable murmurs behind the door and the handle shaking, until his phone rang beside him.

Scoffing, he pressed answer. “Soo?” Jongin’s breathy voice came through, “You home? I think the door’s jammed.” Kyungsoo turned to the door, rolling his eyes at the deadbolt set in place and unlocking it for Jongin.

Jongin had looked as worse as Kyungsoo did—with bags under his eyes and his arms dishevelled as he dragged himself into their apartment with his work bag and his coat in his arms, but the lines of his eyes filled with remnants of glee.

Kyungsoo turned on his heel as soon as he opened the door for Jongin, heading to the bedroom. “Good, you’re home. I can go to bed now.” He muttered, shaking his head as he got into bed and faced the wall.

The younger male stood at the doorway, clearly confused at the air around Kyungsoo, busy looking over his missed notifications and probably the missed texts from Kyungsoo. “Did you wait for me to get home? You shouldn’t have, hyung.”

“Well, I couldn’t sleep without knowing where you were. After all, you didn’t text me.” Kyungsoo retorted, craning his head in Jongin’s direction to look him in the eye to send the message that he was severely unhappy with the turn of events.

“I—I’m sorry, hyung. I just forgot.” He admitted quietly, gingerly approaching the bed to get to Kyungsoo. “That was all I asked, Jongin, so I knew you were safe.” Replied the elder flatly, turning back to face the wall.

The built-up anger was very much easy to succumb to at this point, but his exhaustion had proved to be a bigger priority than venting it out on Jongin. All he asked for was one text. One, just to give him some peace of mind.

“I really didn’t notice your texts, and I just decided to stay at Taemin’s for a bit instead of going home at four in the morning.” Jongin tried to explain, but Kyungsoo gave no indication that he cared about what he said.

“Are we still on for date night later? I’ll make it up to you.” Jongin offered.

“Let’s just not talk about this right now, okay? I just want to go to sleep.”

“Oh. Okay, sure, hyung.” Kyungsoo felt Jongin hesitate beside him, before he felt the warmth of Jongin’s hand on his waist through the thin fabric of his shirt.

That’s why Kyungsoo kept on forgiving—because Jongin always made up to him. Whatever it was, no matter how small or big, Jongin always found a way to soothe any of Kyungsoo’s grievances.

They always found a way to make things work.

That’s why Kyungsoo didn’t understand how they could not work out this _one argument_ that could possibly change their whole life at all, how this one argument was far from being easily resolved.

As a couple in their mid-twenties, it was so easy to start planning so far into their future due to the false sense of security their current life had offered them. They both had too many plans, both their own and for their life together.

Now, despite their talents in the performing arts, both had pursued more mundane and stable careers. Kyungsoo had opted to put his dream of acting on the shelf to collect dust in place of pursuing a career in architecture.

It was safe, and it guaranteed him a comfortable life, though quiet.

And Jongin had instead hung his ballet flats, and chosen a life in child development, unlike his college best friend Taemin, who had now spent his days choreographing for whatever idol group was under the spotlight then.

It was a harsh, fast paced world that Jongin had decided last minute into his dance career was not suited to his long-term goals of settling down at the right age.

In another life, perhaps Jongin would’ve chosen to be part of that cut throat industry, spending his days in practice rooms until the sun rose in him, waiting for this manager to sequester him from stage after stage followed by a small army of stylists to help to get into that character demanded from him though lines and lines of provisions on a piece of paper he had pressed his thumb onto.

But not this one.

In this life, Jongin spent his mornings walking up to a kissed and whispered greeting to his neck or shoulders from his fiancé, a steady routine of rushed showers and packed breakfasts if they had too much fun the night before.

Instead of being greeted by a swarm of people bringing him from hair and make-up and a production assistance repeating instructions to him, each morning he was greeted by his small army of kids—his students—and seeing the progress they made in one year with ‘ _Teacher Jonin’_ had been one of the most fulfilling things Jongin loved about his job.

Though the affection he held for his current job had helped him maintain it, it didn’t stop him from aiming for so much more.

Jongin was a smart person—Kyungsoo once referred to him as a sponge who wanted to soak up all he could about the world and everything it had to offer—so, it made sense that he had a penchant for aspects in the academe and out of it.

So, it didn’t necessarily come as a massive surprise—the news of Jongin receiving a partial scholarship grant from a university he had offhandedly mentioned to Kyungsoo one evening while they were preparing dinner.

A great curriculum on their master’s in education, Jongin had mentioned, and Kyungsoo the ever-supportive fiancé he was, had suggested that Jongin apply to it. “Why not? No harm in trying, right?” Kyungsoo replied midst keeping an eye on the pasta sauce on the stove, before he smiled at Jongin.

And apparently, Jongin did without Kyungsoo’s knowledge that it was a university somewhere in Europe, of all places.

Months later, Jongin had shared the news excitedly to Kyungsoo during a long drive to Gangneung for the long weekend upon Jongin’s request to go to the beach for a small chance to unwind.

Kyungsoo would be lying if he hadn’t noticed the extra pep to Jongin’s step as they were getting ready for the trip that Saturday morning, but decided not to ask as Jongin was probably just excited to go back to the back since their engagement a few months ago.

“Hyung, remember that university I told you about a few months ago?” Jongin had asked, trailing off to bite his lip in attempt to conceal his glee, but Kyungsoo could see how he was almost buzzing from excitement in his seat, turning to stare at Kyungsoo with the biggest smile on his pretty face.

Kyungsoo nodded, humming his affirmation. “Yes love,” He returned Jongin’s smile with one of his own he had turned to meet his stare momentarily. “You’ve decided to apply?”

Jongin reached over to take Kyungsoo’s hand from the wheel into his when they had stopped at a red light, intertwining their fingers. “Actually, I already got in. I sent in my application about a month after we talked it, and I got an email from admissions yesterday saying that I got accepted!” Jongin breathed out, elated about the whole thing.

“That’s why I wanted to go to the beach today, so we can celebrate!” He continued, shaking Kyungsoo’s hand around as he explained, while the older man had merely stared at Jongin’s news, blinking in astonishment as the revelation had finally sunk onto him slowly.

“Oh my god.”

“I know, right! Oh my god, Hyung, I’m just so happy right now!” Jongin gushed, the smile on his face so bright that it made Kyungsoo feel even more worse over his immediate reaction.

Jongin got accepted into a great grad school, and all his hard work had paid off so much. Kyungsoo should be happier for him—it was what his fiancé had deserved, after all—but all he could do was think about was himself, like a selfish jackass.

“Isn’t it great, hyung? I’ll be spending two years in Europe, and think of all the places, all the museums I can visit,” Jongin gasped out, “and I’ll be a better teacher to my kids when I get back!” He droned on, but Kyungsoo had only removed his hand from Jongin’s grasp gingerly to place it back on the wheel to hide the way his fingers shook, his heart beating in his chest loud enough to tune out Jongin’s words beside him.

“It’ll be hard, sure, but it’s just so exciting—hyung?” Jongin had cut himself when he had noticed the blank expression on Kyungsoo’s face. “Are you okay? Are you listening?” He asked, a small frown on his face when he noticed Kyungsoo’s seemingly uninterested expression as he drove.

“Hyung.” Jongin repeated, tapping him on the forearm.

“Yeah. I’m really happy for you, love. I’m incredibly proud of you.” The older man replied sincerely, his voice caught in his throat as he nodded, unable to look Jongin in the eye for too long.

“Are you sure? You don’t look so happy?” came the rather disappointed quip from Jongin, but Kyungsoo had shook his head yet again. “No—love, I’m just really surprised, Jongin. I’m still trying to wrap my mind around it,” Two years apart. Two years away from Jongin. “I just didn’t think you took my suggestion seriously,”

“Yeah,” Jongin nodded, “It was all a whim, just jumped on the opportunity and stuff.” He finished, the smile on his face was still incredibly blissful.

Oh no. No. No. Kyungsoo’s puzzle—it’s all falling apart in front of him—he couldn’t breathe, his chest tightening and his blood growing cold in his veins.

“You really don’t look happy for me, hyung.” Came the doubtful whisper from Jongin, who stared at him with such hurt and disbelief in his eyes that made Kyungsoo want to turn back time for a few minutes, just to take it back.

“I am, Jongin. It’s just a little too much to take in right now.” Kyungsoo said, evading the true source of his feelings. He chose to focus on the road, staring at the tail lights of the car before them instead of the air in the car steadily growing more tense every silent second that went by.

“The wedding just crossed my mind for a bit. I’m sorry, I really am happy for you love, believe me.” Reasoned Kyungsoo, offering Jongin a tensed smile momentarily.

At the mention of the wedding, Jongin’s mood had soured quickly, arms coming over to rest on his chest before crossing them and leaning back on his seat. “You said it yourself, hyung, we’re young. No need to rush things, or the wedding at all.” Jongin said flatly, uninterested in anything Kyungsoo had to say anymore.

“Yes, I did say that, but—”

“But what, hyung!” Jongin hissed out, clearly exasperated about Kyungsoo’s reaction, voice shaking as he desperately tried to contain his disappointment over how things played out over the news he was so excited to share.

He thought Kyungsoo would be over the moon for him. He thought Kyungsoo would support him—he thought Kyungsoo would understand—

Kyungsoo for the first time in his life, had truly felt the magnitude of how displaced he suddenly was in Jongin’s life, panicking at all the things they had said in their supposedly simple conversation to pass time on their way to Gangneung, because for the first time in an argument between them, he had been faced with a policy of really losing Jongin this time.

There were going to be apart for two years—and the thought of trying to maintain a long-distance relationship had been daunting to Kyungsoo—what if Jongin realised that he didn’t want to marry Kyungsoo anymore?

What if Jongin didn’t want to go back home to him after all that time apart?

What if Jongin found someone better—

“It’s just,” Kyungsoo murmured, “It feels like you’re so decided about this career move.”

“I am, yeah.” Came the firm reply from Jongin. “What? Do I have to ask permission from you? Are you forgetting that I am a grown man and I can decide for myself?” He stated, voice riddled with sarcasm. “If it wasn’t clear before, I’m telling you that I’m going, not asking you if I can go.”

Kyungsoo couldn’t help it anymore and snapped at the younger man. “That’s the point, Jongin. You are always deciding without letting me know, you’re always deciding on things as if your choices don’t affect me at all. And you know what does that make me? An absolute idiot.” Came the outburst, but he didn’t mean it.

He didn’t mean to sound so accusing, so selfish, _Jongin—no—I’m sorry—_

 

Jongin did not seem the slightest bit deterred. “It only makes sense for me to decide on this because it affects my future,” he pointed out, tapping at his chest. “Mine.” Jongin let out a gasp of disbelief before continuing. “What effects on your life are you talking about? Kyungsoo, what about mine? What about my own dreams?”

“Because it looks like I’m not part of it anymore when you decide so quickly like that!” Kyungsoo yelled out, while Jongin was getting mad beside him, borderline livid. “So, you think my decision is final?”

“You’ve already set your mind to it, what’s the point of trying to stop you?” Kyungsoo retorted, gripping the wheel hard with one hand and wiping his tears away with the other.

The air in the car had bordered on suffocating, Jongin’s quiet sobbing while Kyungsoo had been trying to stop himself from doing the same thing. “I can’t believe this,” Jongin said, the wet laughter from his wobbling lips all too bitter. “I can’t believe you.”

Kyungsoo had managed to calm himself down, breathing in and out shakily. “I’m so sorry, Jongin,” He offered, looking hesitant as he tried to touch Jongin only for the younger to shy away from him and curl into himself even more. “I didn’t mean to say that.”

“No.” Came the firm denial from Jongin. “This isn’t something you can just sweep under the rug and never talk about again. This is my future, Kyungsoo. Did you really think I was just going to go without telling you or working out the details with you?” Jongin’s voice cracked as he sobbed. “Did you really think I would just leave you?”

When Kyungsoo refused to respond, Jongin pressed him to speak. “Did you really have that little faith in me, Kyungsoo?” He asked, voice lowered into a whisper as it thickened with emotion.

Kyungsoo really wanted to answer Jongin and deny all those statements, but he couldn’t find it in himself to speak at all as dread made him unable to move his limbs, heart clenching at the sound of Jongin crying into the sleeve of his jacket. “Don’t you trust me, Soo?”

When Kyungsoo still refused to speak, the few seconds that passed seemed like hours made Jongin even more betrayed over the whole ordeal. “I think we need some time apart.” Jongin said quietly, wiping at this face dejectedly as he seemed to lose all fight he had.

“Are you breaking up with me?” Kyungsoo asked, all too scared of the answer he was going to receive.

“You need to stop overanalysing my words, hyung.” The younger man retorted, rolling his eyes. “I said we need a break from each other.” He breathed out.

Kyungsoo shook his head and scoffed. “We both know breaks are bullshit.”

Jongin sighed, unable to believe Kyungsoo’s reaction. “Whatever issue you have about me deciding about my own career, I understand, but this just truly shows how little faith and trust you have in me.”

“I love you, Kyungsoo, but if we can’t get over this small of a leap over big changes in our lives, we should just call the engagement off.” Jongin said, the tone of finality in his voice making Kyungsoo’s ears ring in panic.

“What?”

“You heard me. Let’s call it off. We clearly need some time apart from now.” Jongin said calmly, but Kyungsoo quickly spoke over him. “There’s no need to do that. We’re going to deal with this without jumping into conclusions—”

“You hypocrite,” Jongin hissed. “How dare you say that to me when you’re the one who thought I would leave without a word?”

“I’m just scared Jongin, what if you find someone else better than me when you go there?” Kyungsoo confessed, while Jongin just seemed offended at the way Kyungsoo kept cutting him off repeatedly, but the implications of the older man’s words stung more.

“You’d really think I’d do that to you? You think I’m with you because you’re convenient? Obviously, you have no faith in my capabilities to properly decide for myself, and my affections.” Jongin said, truly broken at what they’ve come to. “If you sincerely doubt me like this, we should really call the engagement off for the time being—”

“No, Jongin, please, I’m sorry.”

“You really want to see to me decide without putting you into account, fine. Here,” Jongin made the action of reaching for his ring finger to remove the ring, which made Kyungsoo lose sight of the road in an attempt to stop Jongin from removing it. “Jongin, wait, stop. Let’s talk about this—”

The anger from Jongin’s features had immediately melted into shock at the sight of a bright light in front of them, reaching out for Kyungsoo. “Kyungsoo, watch out—”

\--

The loud monotone beeping resonating in the room woke Kyungsoo up slowly, letting out stuttered bursts of air with the thing down his throat and stuck down on his cheek. The beeping got increasingly louder as the cloud of pain killers went through his system, eyes fluttering under the bright lights above him, still struggling to breathe with what he assumed was a tube down his throat.

The sensory overload was too much—he thought—the white light above him leaving spots in his vision once he mustered up the strength to fully open his eyes and tried to make sense of his surroundings. Disinfectant—sharp and potent—made his nose sting, head pounding at the incessant beeping of whatever the fuck that was.

He could hear someone distantly calling his name, foreign hands on his arm touching him gingerly—not Jongin—who was touching him?

Where was he?

Where was Jongin?

“…Soo? Kyungsoo? Can you hear me?” Kyungsoo blearily followed the voice calling him, nodding slowly as he raised an arm to stare at the multitude of IV tubes on his hand hooked on to a machine, squinting in an attempt to stare at the stitches at his arms.

He furrowed his brows as his eyes grew accustomed to the brightness—spots disappearing from his vision when a blurry figure above him presenting itself as Junmyeon, his pale face contorted into a mix of relief and worry.

“Kyungsoo,” Junmyeon whispered almost hesistantly, “It’s hyung. Oh my god, you’re finally awake.” He spoke, stroking his forehead before calling out to someone, “Baek, please call the nurse. Kyungsoo’s awake.”

Kyungsoo heard someone clamber to the door, reaching up to touch his cheek that had been itching under the medical tape holding the tube in place. He tried to speak, but to no avail, his throat struggling to form nothing but garbled syllables coming out of his lips.

“Yes, Baek called someone if they can remove it.” Junmyeon provided calmly, his low voice a soothing balm to the tightening knot of stress in Kyungsoo’s chest, still slipping in and out of consciousness.

Eyelids getting heavier, he felt Junmyeon’s thumb smooth the furrow between his brows. “It’s okay, Kyungsoo. Hyung’s here.” He murmured, the sound of a small group of doctors and nurses in the hallway growing more and more distant as he steadily succumbed to back sleep.

He woke once again after an indeterminate amount of time, bones aching and muscles tight from being in one position for so long. His hand twitched as he moved them across the stiff sheets, someone rushing by his side to hold his hand. Someone else again.

Where was Jongin?

“Oh my god, Soo.” Baekhyun exclaimed, squeezing Kyungsoo’s unmarred hand between both of his, smiling at him.

He no longer had the breathing tube in his throat, but it was still felt terribly scratchy. “..ater, ‘ease.” Came the pained whisper, to which Baekhyun quickly responded to. “Yeah, here.” He reached towards to the bottle of water on the table at the foot of Kyungsoo’s bed and helped him up to drink.

Coughing to get the itch away from his throat, he asked Baekhyun the question he had been wanting to ask ever since he woke up the first time. “Where’s Jongin?” At the mention of the younger man, Baekhyun had a strange look of poorly concealed pain on his face, features twisting unpleasantly as he suddenly looked away from Kyungsoo.

“Hyung, where’s Jongin? Is he okay?” He repeated, watching Baekhyun’s eyes flicker between him and anywhere eyes. “You should really worry about yourself first, you got really hurt, Kyungsoo.” Baekhyun whisked the topic away from Jongin, his poorly veiled attempts doing nothing to alleviate the pit of dread growing deep in his stomach.

The door had swung open, cutting their conversation short when a new voice spoke out, the source revealing itself to be Junmyeon, a paper bag of food piled high in his arms. “Hey Baek, I didn’t know what to get you since you weren’t answering, so I just got you the same thing I did—” Junmyeon mused mostly to himself, back turned from Kyungsoo’s bed, not noticing that the dark-haired male was already awake.

“Hyung,” Kyungsoo called out firmly despite his voice cracking from the sudden strain, taking the eldest by surprise and sitting up by himself even with his body protesting. “What’s going on? Where’s Jongin?” He asked again, hoping for answers this time around but got nothing but the same pained look on Junmyeon’s face.

“Hyung, I am going to ask you again,” He repeated, his signature stubbornness making itself apparent as Junmyeon approached him gingerly, like he was approaching a wounded animal. “Where is Jongin? Why am I here?” Kyungsoo tried to insist, but Junmyeon kept his lips sealed as he looked at Baekhyun.

They had exchanged a look, Baekhyun’s lips curling in a frown while Junmyeon’s eyebrows furrowed in frustration, a peculiar mix of conflicted emotions flashing through his features.

He had looked Kyungsoo in the eyes hesitantly, before choosing to stand beside him and schooling his face into a hardened, unreadable expression. Lowering the safety railing on the bed, he chose to sit in front of Kyungsoo envelop his hands with his own clammy ones.

“You two got into an accident, near Gangneung.” Junmyeon explained, his voice faltering slightly as squirmed under the intensity of Kyungsoo’s questioning gaze on him. Kyungsoo nodded slowly, the information matching up with what he remembered. “Yeah, we were going to the beach. Jongin wanted to celebrate because he got into grad school,” Baekhyun gasped low at the revelation, sinking into the nearby sofa to steady himself.

“We got into fight because of some dumb shit I said, and the next think I knew,” Kyungsoo blinked as he remembered what happened, “We crashed into another car. I remember Jongin’s face when he pointed at it, but I don’t remember thing after that.” He explained.

“Yes Soo,” Junmyeon had let his lungs empty, breathing out slowly, as if he was psyching himself to say something. In the years that Kyungsoo had known Junmyeon, he had never seen the lawyer without the placid smile on his face. He had never seen Junmyeon like this, like he was afraid of something.

“You were in a coma for the past two months. It’s November now, Kyungsoo.”

Kyungsoo’s jaw dropped slightly, eyes blinking rapidly in confusion before he stared at the small healed cuts and abrasions on his arms, some with stitches, some scabs lifting off to reveal the tender pink skin underneath. “Okay, but you still haven’t answered my question. Where is Jongin?”

Junmyeon frowned, pity in his eyes as he still struggled to come into terms with what needed to be said. “Kyungsoo,” He started, voice trailing off, voice tinged with a strange hint of resigned determination. “Jongin’s gone, Kyungsoo. I’m sorry.”

One—

By—

One—

His puzzle fallen apart.

“No.” Kyungsoo whispered, shaking his head vehemently.

“He got out of the hospital about three weeks before you woke up, but—”

“Is this a fucking joke?” Kyungsoo hissed, unable to process what Junmyeon had just told him, chest heaving up and down erratically as Junmyeon reached up to hold his forearms steady. “There was a complication due to surgery, and the doctors—”

“No, that’s not true.” Kyungsoo gasped, lungs seizing and unable to breathe properly. “No, no, not Jongin, not him—no.”

A nurse had entered the room, clearly alarmed when Kyungsoo’s vital signs rose while he struggled against Junmyeon’s grip, yanking the ECG electrodes off his chest, already about to yank the IV off his hand. “No, Kyungsoo, please,” Junmyeon begged, holding Kyungsoo’s hands firmly to the point that the younger’s skin grew white along his grip. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”

The younger male had started sobbing, shaking his head wildly, bottom lip wobbling at he wiped at his eyes. “You’re lying!” He denied, trying to squirm away when Baekhyun reached over to hold him close.

“This is a joke, right? He put you up to this prank because he’s still mad at me, right?” Kyungsoo let out a bitter laugh, slumping into Baekhyun’s chest and burying his eyes into the older man’s shirt. Kyungsoo looked at Junmyeon with such hurt and disbelief in his eyes, unable to come into terms with the news and convincing himself that this was just some sick joke.

He hoped it was just a dumb joke Jongin did to get back at him for saying those dumb things in the car—that he would pop into the room to forgive him, to be able to come home with Jongin in their tiny apartment, help him prepare for Grad School, and tell him that he loved him so, so much.

“He’s waiting for me at home, yeah? Baek, this isn’t funny anymore.” He whimpered. Baekhyun looked at the cross hanging over Kyungsoo’s bed, eyes bloodshot while he prayed to whatever God there was as he rubbed at Kyungsoo’s shoulders through the thin papery fabric of his hospital gown for some semblance of comfort. “I’m really sorry, Kyungsoo.”

Kyungsoo slumped against the older male, shaking in his arms. “I’m sorry Jongin, I’ll be better, please.” He screamed into the room, hoping that Jongin would just burst through the doors and hold him instead of Baekhyun.

The heartbeat against his ear was all too foreign, perfume on Baekhyun too strong to be even remotely close to Jongin. Too overcome with grief and guilt weighing down on his chest, he had been light headed to see Junmyeon apologizing to the staff over his outburst.

If he had been better, more supportive and less selfish he wouldn’t have lost control of the wheel that night, Jongin would be the one he woke up to.

But Jongin was gone.

Not for two years, but forever.

Jongin would never come home ever again.

It was all his fault.

\--

After passing out due to the intense emotional outburst that sent his heart rate over the roof, a week had passed.

A series of long, extensive tests had been done to see if his body had truly recovered, Kyungsoo tolerating the methodical hands prodding at his body, refusing to speak all the while and answering questions with a small shake of his head or a grunt of confirmation.

Therapy—both physical and psychological—had been the doctor’s recommendation, coming up with a schedule that he didn’t remember agreeing to.

A month later of begrudgingly attending physical therapy to regain control of his unused limbs and refusing to actually talk to his psychiatrist, Kyungsoo had gained enough progress to be discharged from the hospital and continue his treatment through visits and check-ups instead.

After the placid looking doctor had calmly informed him of the news and left his paperwork with Baekhyun, Kyungsoo’s parents had been the one to pick him up from the hospital, his mother rushing into the room towards the bed he had been sitting on, staring flatly at the hospital courtyard through the window.

The moment Kyungsoo and his mother met eyes, all he wanted to do was scream at her, wanting nothing more than to push her away just to avoid the pity in her eyes.

But he didn’t do anything, sitting there without a care as she fussed over him. All he wanted to do was go home and sleep.

Baekhyun had come in a few hours before they had arrived, informing him that everything had been taken care of by the form, no need to worry about his pending projects as Sehun had already returned from his vacation, reminding him to take his time to grieve.

Kyungsoo had noticed that the older male’s eyes were red rimmed, and a little swollen at the edges. Typical Baekhyun. Hiding under his façade of humour yet again, but Kyungsoo couldn’t blame him. “Sorry I won’t be able to drop you off at home, Soo. I need to back to the office real soon.” He said, helping Kyungsoo pack up his meagre belongings and papers.

A short hug later, Baekhyun had handed him a small envelope before rushing off to work, which Kyungsoo had tucked into his jacket pocket, letting himself get dragged into his parent’s car.

A few attempts of conversation had been made by his mother, and a handful of well-mannered taps on this shoulder from his father, but it came to be apparent that Kyungsoo had no desire to communicate with anyone, verbally or whatever else.

Or to be around anyone, for that matter.

Once he had been dropped off back into his and Jongin’s—oh, just his apartment now, he stood dumbly at the doorway, bag tossed carelessly on the floor as he took the place in.

It had been the same as they had left it two or three months ago—time had passed in a way that Kyungsoo didn’t understand, unable to comprehend that it had been two months since Jongin had passed.

The bin still empty from when they emptied it before they left for Gangneung, his unfinished plans rolled haphazardly on the dinner table, drawing tools placed into one of their storage cubbies on a dining chair.

Jongin’s work bag had been set on the floor, the canvas tote bag still beside his desk in front of the window. The little colourful post its tacked on to the wall, bleached white by the sunlight, his unfinished lesson plans, remnants of art paper littered around his pen holders, his notebooks and class materials piled into one corner, and on top of it, an opened envelope with a familiar university crest addressed to one Jongin Kim.

There had been a note tacked onto the fridge with one of the lopsided bear fridge magnets Jongin had received from one of his students, from Junmyeon.

_Hey Kyungsoo,_

_I took the liberty of stocking your fridge for the meantime after a long talk of trying to convince your landlord that I wasn’t going to steal anything from you. Your bills had been handled, and I left all of them on the coffee table if you need to look over them. There’s also a temporary cell phone there you can use if you need it._

_Your landlord still refused to let me see the other bits of mail you guys had received over the past month, so you may have to get it from him yourself. So sorry about that._

_There are also some frozen dishes in the freezer Chanyeol had helped cook, because God knows I can’t. It may not be up to your cooking skills, but it’s enough._

_Take care of yourself, Soo. Give me a call if you need anything, alright?_

  _JM._

A loud knock on the door had pulled him out of his daydreaming stupor, sighing when it echoed into the room again. He had opened the door, staring at the familiar face at their—his—landlord with a box of mail in his arms.

“I heard ‘bout what happened.” The old man offered gruffly, to which Kyungsoo had only nodded in response. “My condolences, kid. Your roommate,” Kyungsoo let out an amused burst of air at the word. Most of their neighbours had really thought they were just a pair of college buddied sharing expensive Seoul rent, some knew but chose to keep mum on the matter. “was a great kid, helped me with my groceries whenever he saw me. I’m real sorry.”

“He was my fiancé, Mr. Choi.” Kyungsoo had stated quietly, his own voice foreign to his ears, taking the box from the old man’s arms, not really bothering to defend himself in the typical homophobic litany had burst from his mouth, but had only been faced with another familiar face of pity.

“Goddamn. I’m sorry, kid.” He breathed out, scratching at his head. “I remember when I lost my wife, painful days, I know.”

Kyungsoo had pursed his lips in an impression of a smile, regarding the person in front of him. “Your lawyer friend told me what happened. Have you visited him?”

Why would he even divulge anything about Jongin with someone who they met once or twice a month for rent and other maintenance concerns, but this person knew what he was going through.

“No,” Kyungsoo confessed, biting at his cheek. “I don’t think if I can yet.”

“Do it when you’re ready to see him, but I don’t want to tell you how to live your life.” He explained, waving his hand. “See you around, kid.”

After closing the door, Kyungsoo had dragged the box into the living room, rummaging through the packets of clothes and other tidbits brought about by one of Jongin’s online shopping fits, bits of junk mail, a myriad of cards from Jongin’s co-workers and students that he had been too afraid to open, because it would everything too real.

He had thought of visiting Jongin but was still deep in denial about the fact that he was now alone in their apartment, in their home. He walked around, half expecting Jongin’s bare footsteps across the tiles, or his voice humming to a random song on the radio.

Kyungsoo had desperately tried to push down the grief, heading to the bedroom to sleep or atleast, attempt to, when he sees Jongin’s side is still unkempt. The oversized cardigan he loved lounging around in was still hanging off the railings on the foot of the bed. He reaches for it, almost hesitantly, wrapping it around himself and proceeding to crash under the rush of emotions it envoked.

Two years of living in this place, but it had been the first time Kyungsoo had ever felt alone in the years Jongin had made it into their home.

The radio silence had been interrupted by Kyungsoo’s gasping breaths between his sobs, slumping on the bed while desperately clinging onto Jongin’s cardigan and his scent of his favourite fabric softener through the sheets.

The crying had been enough to add to the amount of emotional exhaustion he had been supressing for months—crying until his throat felt hoarse, eyes too swollen—before falling asleep, curled in the middle of the bed alone.

\--

He had woken up hours later, hours after the afternoon sun had set over the horizon, blanketing their bedroom in darkness aside from the stray streetlights across their apartment complex.

Kyungsoo had woken up with a sore back from sleeping in such a strange position; stomach growling at the missed meals and head throbbing from dehydration. Guess he needed to test out Chanyeol’s cooking, after all.

He had seen the phone provided oh so kindly by Junmyeon on the coffee table blinking due to a new notification, a text from an unsaved number.

_Kyungsoo, this is Jungah._

So, Jongin’s sister knew his new number.

_I heard you got out of the hospital, and I know you need space, but if ever you want to visit Jongin, here’s the address._

She had sent over the pin of where Jongin had rested, in Jongin’s hometown and a long way from their apartment.

_Please don’t blame yourself about what happened, it was an accident. Jongin wouldn’t have wanted that. Take care._

 Kyungsoo scoffed, not even bothering to reply. How could they know what Jongin wanted, and visiting Jongin, he didn’t even know if he deserved to visit him at all.

Days had passed with Kyungsoo spiralling down deep into a path of self-destruction, sleeping day and day out, barely eating, avoiding calls much to Junmyeon’s dismay.

It had escalated to the point that Junmyeon had had enough of his attitude, shocking Kyungsoo when he came over unannounced in their apartment, sitting primly on their sofa in a suit, legs crossed and clearly unamused over Kyungsoo’s current dishevelled state.

“This had got to stop, Kyungsoo.” Junmyeon said, shaking his head at the way Kyungsoo rolled his eyes. “Your therapist is concerned, you’ve been missing appointments and clearly not doing anything to help your case here.” He gestured vaguely at the pile of dirty laundry by the bathroom hamper, the dishes left unwashed on the dinner table.

“Why are you even in my house?” Kyungsoo had asked, voice filled with venom when he walked to the kitchen in search of a glass to drink some water, but all of them had been dirty. He shrugged, drinking from the pitcher before slamming the fridge door closed.

“That’s gross, even for my standards.” Junmyeon commented, pulling at face at Kyungsoo’s appearance. He unbuttoned his jacket, placing on the least dirty place in the living room with was Jongin’s chair before pushing his sleeves up and gathering the dishes on the coffee table. “Why are you here?”

“To help you, of course. I want to know why you’re doing this,” The older man gestured at the apartment wildly, “to yourself.” He finished, moving the assortment of mugs in this arms to the kitchen and resorted to washing them himself.

“None of your business.” Kyungsoo replied, reaching over to close the tap. “Now, get out of my house and stop interfering with my life.”

Junmyeon looked like he had been instantly irritated about the whole thing, clenching his jaw to hold his anger. “This isn’t what Jongin would’ve wanted for you.” He reasoned out, but that seemed to pull at the wrong strings in Kyungsoo.

“How would you know? He’s dead.” He hissed, throwing food scraps and wrappers with too much intensity for the job. “Why does everything think they can waltz into my life to tell me what I should do? How dare you even tell me that this isn’t what Jongin wanted? How the fuck would you even know? Kyungsoo screamed out, clearly frustrated.

Surely, Junmyeon’s experience in court had equipped him with the skills to not shy away from being screamed at, and it did. He had not once flinched at Kyungsoo’s outburst, calmly dealing with it. “Look, I don’t know how you’re feeling, but you can’t do this to yourself.”

“Then why are you interfering if you don’t know how I feel? Tell me, Junmyeon, how I feel right now.” Kyungsoo had stared at him wildly, eyes shining with tears as he ground his teeth in fury. “I feel fucking miserable because the love my life is gone, because I had been careless.” He yelled out, jabbing a finger in Junmyeon’s chest.

“I had been careless, trying to prevent him from breaking up with me because if I hadn’t stopped him and taken my eyes off the road, he would still be probably alive. I feel fucking miserable because I don’t know who else to blame for all this because the drunk jackass who hit us is already fucking dead.” Kyungsoo breathed out, words merging with each other as he rushed to get all the words out at the same time his walls crumbled down.

“I don’t know who to blame but myself, because I lived and Jongin didn’t! He was going to go do better things with his life, and now he’s fucking gone!” Came the anguished scream from Kyungsoo, voice scratchy as he growled his words out.

“So that’s what I feel about this whole thing, just for your information.” He hissed out at Junmyeon, voice wet with sadness as the layer of anger had dissipated.

“All his dreams and mine are gone, Myeon.” Kyungsoo pushed at his friend’s throat weakly, all fight leaving his body. “All because I couldn’t stand the fact that he was going to living away from me for two fucking years, now tell me why I shouldn’t do this myself? I’m doing this because I fucking deserve this.”

“No, you don’t.” Junmyeon reached over to hold Kyungsoo’s arms gently. “You don’t deserve to hurt yourself for trying to save your relationship. I’m not telling you to rush your grieving, because I can’t imagine coping with losing someone I love and what I had with them.” He reached up to cup Kyungsoo’s cheeks, wiping at his tears.

Kyungsoo stepped forward, slumping into his shoulders to sob into his probably very expensive dress shirt. “I don’t know what to do, hyung.” He whispered in a small voice, muffled against Junmyeon’s shoulder, arms coming up to grip the fabric on the elder’s back. “I miss Jongin so much, I don’t know what to do without him.”

He sobbed into Junmyeon’s arms for what seemed like hours, the older man’s hands rubbing at his back calmly. Junmyeon took the initiative to pull Kyungsoo away from his arms, shocking Kyungsoo with the identical tear tracks on his cheeks. “Hyung’ll help you figure that out, okay?”

He said softly, Kyungsoo suddenly reminded of their younger selves when Junmyeon took on the older brother mantle for him way too many times, especially during his parents’ divorce. It alleviated the pain in his chest somehow, to know that Junmyeon wasn’t going to leave him anytime soon.

“Now, you need a shower. Hyung’ll take care of this before I go back to the office.” Junmyeon smiled, wiping at his own face and gesturing to the pile of dishes.

\--

Kyungsoo had emerged fresh and weirdly energized from the bathroom from the longest shower he had probably taken, scrubbing the built-up grime from his skin from the days of neglecting himself.

Junmyeon had stayed true to his word—his kitchen and living room spotless, his laundry basket emptied and the low hum of the washing machine in the background had helped break the white silence that had been making Kyungsoo’s ears ring for days.

There was also a plate of stew on the counter with a sticky note on it, next to the rice cooker warming up some rice.

_Sorry, Soo._

_Really needed to check back on a client._

_I’ll call you when I get out of the office later, and please, pick up._

_JM._

After he had finally gotten some semblance of control back in his life, Kyungsoo tried to clean Jongin’s things. Stuffing his clothes after the load of laundry Junmyeon had kindly started, adding in his own jacket hanging off the chooks behind the bedroom door to be washed.

He had double checked the prockets, frowning when his fingers made contact with something papery, pulling it out to be the same envelope Baekhyun had given him almost weeks before. Shaking its contents free, a small platinum band had fallen into his hand.

Jongin’s ring.

He had turned the envelope over, noticing Baekhyun’s clean handwriting over it.

_The hospital staff gave this to me when I took Jongin to the hospital for the second time._

_Guess I never got to return it back to him, so here._

_Take care of it._

_B._

Jongin’s fingers were longer, much slenderer than his, and it felt like he was adding more salt to his own would if he wore the worn-down platinum himself. So, he dug around his jewellery in the bedroom to find a decent enough chain to attach it to, thumbing the metal thoughtfully as he walked back out the living room, the ring strangely heavy around his neck when the memories of his proposal came rushing back.

The beach, the sunset. Jongin in his favourite cardigan, his windswept hair and sun kissed skin.

It had all been too much.

He stood in front of Jongin’s desk after not having the strength to look in its general direction ever since he was discharged from the hospital. He had stared at the sun setting from the window across the chair, sighing. Now he understood why Jongin preferred to work here than the kitchen table.

He remembered the time Jongin had the sudden urge to redecorate their living room, insisting on a desk with a built-in shelf for all his books. Though he had helped Kyungsoo understand what he wanted for this small awkward space in front of the window through a rough sketch on a restaurant napkin, Kyungsoo had refined it with all the proper measurements.

They had shared the trouble of actually building everything, after it was done, Jongin had kissed him on the cheek as thanks, wrapping his long limbs around him.

Kyungsoo stared at the books lined on the shelves—from classics, crime novels, to Jongin’s guilty love of the Harry Potter series—and immediately missed the way Jongin’s eyes sparked when reading a good book during the weekends, his long legs contorted into a new weird position every few minutes, face morphing into a variety of expressions as he progressed through the stories.

He could write novels of how much he loved Jongin and everything about him, but what was the use? The only person he’d want to read that was gone, Kyungsoo thought, twirling a nearby pen between his index and middle fingers in the way that drive Jongin crazy because he could never imitate it.

Kyungsoo remembered his vows, and how he promised Jongin that he already finished his. A lie, of course. Kyungsoo managed to finish his because he just kept adding and adding to whatever he had because after nearly five years with Jongin, he always managed to find more and more things to cherish about the younger man.

The word file of his vows had now been sitting idly in his work laptop recycle bin, a dumbly titled: 2019 Projects.

He had meant to refine it when he got the time, but it seemed like it was useless now.

He grabbed a scratch pad, from the small pile of notebooks on one corner and recognised the familiar journal slip alongside the medium-sized memo pad he had intended to borrow to write down his final vows, just to give himself something else to think about until Junmyeon came over once more to babysit him.

Kyungsoo should really remember to take the spare key from Junmyeon one of these days.

Grabbing the familiar sticker ridden journal—most probably gifts again from Jongin’s beloved students, or simply from Jongin’s own collection—he recognised it to be his personal journal.

Hesitating, he pressed it close to his chest, trying to steel himself to peek at its contents without expecting Jongin whining at him from the other end of the apartment, before walking in quick strides to pull it away from his hands and planting himself in Kyungsoo’s lap. “No, hyung! You’ll see all my dirty secrets!”

But nothing.

Just him in Jongin’s favourite office chair, “It’s got great lumbar support, god knows I need that sort in my life” Jongin had said once, with a worn-out journal sitting in silence in hand, all alone.

Shrugging, he had shaken his head to free himself from thinking about that again and decided to flip through it, toes swinging on the tiles to turn the chair from side to side as he thumbed through the eggshell white of Jongin’s journal, committing Jongin’s inconsistent penmanship to mind.

Most of the pages were just filled with his half done to do lists jotted down in practised script, random blurbs scrawled through the page in looping cursive and the rest were unused. He had almost set down the journal, finding nothing of interest under he saw the folded pages at the back pages when it refused to close properly.

Deciding to check it, Kyungsoo turned it back and looked at the bacl, and he could swear, he could feel his heart at the throat at the Jongin’s looping cursive at the top of the page, words crossed out again and again until a more cohesive sentence had been written down underneath it.

_To our forever—by KJI_

— _Do vows even need titles?_

Jongin had finished his vows. His vows had taken up two and a half pages, but judging from the torn edges at the spine, he had taken just as much time to get his words out, multiple corrections and some words almost discernible as he seemed to rush to get all his words on paper—a tangible list of all his dreams and promises for Kyungsoo.

He slammed the journal close, the hardbound covers clapping loudly as he stopped himself from reading anything else. A part of him reasoned out that he really shouldn’t, but Jongin would never be able to say these to him. He would never get to see the day Jongin listen to his own promises.

So, he gingerely opened the pages, and read the rushed, looping words and read them again and again, in a peculiar attempt to burn Jongin’s words to memory until he felt hot tears rolling down on his cheeks, clutching the pages to his chest.

Jongin really was gone, and there really was nothing that could change that, he thought as he continued to sob, chest heaving as he sobbed inconsolably. That was the state Junmyeon finds him almost an hour later, still holding the journal to his chest.

“Jongin—his vows,” Kyungsoo wheezed out, staring up at Junmyeon’s concerned eyes. “I found Jongin’s vows to me, hyung.” He breathed out, shooting up on his feet with a renewed frenzy in his eyes. “I have to go—I have to see Jongin.” Kyungsoo said mostly to himself, rushing to the bedroom to pull a parka from the closet, clamouring to pull on socks with one arm in the padded jacket. “Hyung, I have to visit, Jongin. Please take me there, hyung.”

“Kyungsoo—Kyungsoo!” Junmyeon called out to Kyungsoo, who was already opening the door with a scarf in hand and the journal tucked to his chest. “It’s eight in the evening. I doubt the Memorial would even let us in this late at night.”

“But—”

“I promise I’ll take you tomorrow, as soon as it opens, we’ll be there, but now, dinner first, okay?” Junmyeon smiled gently, pulling the jacket from Kyungsoo’s shoulders.

After dinner, Kyungsoo proceeded to go to sleep, or attempted to, watching anxiously as the hours ticked by and the sun rose slowly into the sky, immediately calling Junmyeon at six in the morning to come pick him up.

When Junmyeon had arrived in Kyungsoo’s apartment, coat pulled haphazardly over his pullover and eyes squinting behind the thick lens of his glasses, probably didn’t attempt to put his contact lenses on with Kyungsoo’s incessant calling. His jaw dropped at Kyungsoo, eyes bloodshot, only awake from the remnants of his adrenaline from the previous night and pacing anxiously in the kitchen in Jongin’s clothes.

Junmyeon couldn’t even argue when Kyungsoo was marching on to the direction of his car double parked outside the building, Kyungsoo had already been buckled into the passenger seat of Junmyeon’s car before he even got down.

The anxious waves of energy had been rolling off of Kyungsoo from the time Junmyeon had punched in the address into his GPS, one hand wrapped around a necklace on his chest, his other fingers taping on the arm rest repeatedly as they headed off to the memorial. As soon as they got close enough to Jongin’s lot, Kyungsoo asked Junmyeon to stop the ca, immediately running off to search for Jongin, still with the notebook tucked into his chest.

Deciding that this was a moment that Kyungsoo needed alone, Junmyeon had stayed in the car and watched Kyungsoo run and suddenly stop, before slowly getting down on his knees.

_Kim Jongin_

_2018_

_A beloved son and friend to all._

Kyungsoo laughed to himself when he spotted it, eyes welling up at the corners as he reached to touch the stone gently in with his hands, voice shaking as he greeted Jongin after weeks of lacking the drive to do so.

“Hello, love. I’m so sorry for being late.”

_—fin_


	2. Chapter 2

_To our forever—by kji_

 

Do vows even need titles?

 

Well, mine does.

 

Hi Hyung.

 

I told you I was determined to make you cry with my vows because you were always one step ahead of me in writing them, so I made this during my kids’ recess.

 

Something’s that’s gonna make you bawl your eyes, but you know, I was so scared that mine wouldn’t compare because you were already done with your vows on your laptop—yes, I peeked, I’m sorry. It was by accident when I borrowed your work laptop—because you were always the more matured one, you always know how to put your emotions into a few words that I could always understand.

 

Short and sweet, in so many ways you are, Kyungsoo.

 

You know hyung, I could use all the pages in the world, whatever fancy appear I can buy from a craft store in whatever language I choose to learn to write my vows, this cluster of word vomit, I could never figure out how to properly tell you how much I truly love you.

 

So here it is.

 

In all my most ardent sincerity.

 

I’ve had exes. I’ve formed connections with so many people in my lifetime but none of them can compare to what I’ve formed with you. Nothing can compare with what we have.

 

You really took the tome to get to know me, to memorise anything and everything about me. My hopes, dreams and fears, the way I like my eggs, even the way I talk sometimes in my sleep, you took the time to understand me.

 

I just like hanging out with you, hyung. All the time.

 

Sometimes, I think about my life if I hadn’t met you.

 

Maybe I’d be Europe, with my face all over brand ads and magazines like you always insist, or performing on a channel in your TV that you come across while channel surfing, but in the years we’ve been together, I can’t help thank whatever divine being that pulled the strings for making me meet you, even if you did punch me by mistake when you first met me.

 

All I want is to be with you and play videogames with you after dinner with a giant tub of family sized Nutella on my lap.

 

I know I’m not perfect, hyung, despite how often you always say it to me. I’m impulsive, sometimes immature, but you make me want to be a better person because if you can join me in all my weird impulses and drinking tequila in skinny jeans on Friday night, then I would love to spend all my Saturday afternoons with you because God knows I can’t wake up on a Saturday morning after partying,  or visit whatever restaurant you want to try even if I can’t pronounce half of the menu.

 

Because you do things that make me happy, I want to do the same things for you.

 

No matter how big or small, even if it’s just making you coffee in the morning before work, or just helping you with groceries, or making you laugh in with all my dumb puns and corny jokes. I want to do everything I can to make you happy.

 

All those times I’ve screwed up or forgot to think before I leapt, all those times you didn’t leave, it’s dawned on me.

 

I would love to hang out with you, after a long day of work or a Friday night in in our sweatpants, eating ice cream while we binge Lucifer. I would love to hang out with you for the rest of my life.

 

Nothing makes me happier than the thought of waking up next to you, coming home to you and your cooking, because it makes all the hard work and arguments worth it.

 

And it all is.

 

Kyungsoo, you are so worth fighting for.

 

Because after this day ends, I’ll be coming home to you for the rest of my life. I’ll coming home to my husband, and I love you so much.

 

So Doh Kyungsoo, would you give me the ultimate pleasure of being my husband? And officially giving me the privilege of introducing you as ‘ _my husband’_ to every new person we meet? Because that would really make me so insurmountably happy.

 

So Kyungsoo, will you spend your forever with me?

 

 

 

 

 

 

_My promises—by dks_

 

To tell you the truth, I’ve never expected to be at this side of the altar, to be the one promising the world to someone because for the past few decades and some in my life, I’ve always been the audience to those promises said in the altar.

 

But surprise, indeed.

 

Mostly because, marriage had long lost its glamour to me. The magic of love, or lack thereof, has been very much evidently short lived most of the time. So, this view, has always made me the severely jaded person people hated inviting to wedding because I was always the one who made comments like it isn’t going to last like an absolute ass.

 

I was always the pessimist, always betting on the odds.

 

But when I met you, when I got to know you, when I fell in love with you, I’ve never taken back my words so quickly. When I fell in love with you, Jongin, felt that magic that had been long dead to me spark back to life, as absurd as it sounds.

 

When I punched you in that bar, so pissed I couldn’t see straight, I never realised that I would learn to hope again.

 

When you had made a place for yourself in my very closed off life, I’ve never been so scared and excited in my life. I’ve never been so hopeful in my life, because I kept hoping that you never left my life. I realised that had been one of the lucky ones, because I felt such a genuine form of love that people only desired in their wildest dreams.

 

But I hope you don’t mind that I am still not the most optimistic person out there. I’ve become a realist now, just baby steps from where I formerly stood on. I’m here to tell you that vows are for optimistic people, but you inspire me to be one of them.

 

I can promise you the world, the sun and stars, and the universe if need be, but we all know I am just human, and as much I’d love to do that for you, I just physically can’t.

 

I can never be as good as a dancer as you are.

 

I can never be solely yours, because I am mine alone, but I can give you a piece of my soul, because I know you will protect it. That you’ll protect me.

 

I can never be that person who really fits the image of your dream person, but I can try to make you the happiest person in the world. I will help you reach all your dreams, your own and ours, and celebrate all our successes together.

 

I’m just not the person to make empty promises. I cannot promise you that I will be there for everything, I cannot promise you that death will not do us part, because it will.

 

But this I can promise you.

 

Your name will be the one I call for when I’m in need, and that your eyes will be the last to see all my vulnerabilities, my strengths and weaknesses.

 

I promise to put you first and take care of you the best way I can.

 

Jongin, I know I am promising you such small things, but I am a simple person. It’s always been a black or white t-shirt with me.

 

But please, remember, that I will dedicate my days to make you happy, be patient and understanding when you are not, and admit and amend my wrongs if ever I’d been the source of your unhappiness.

 

Jongin, you are one of the most loving, and kindest person I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. You are immensely bright, smart and talented, that it makes me feel stupidly lucky because I receive the love you give to the world tenfold.

 

You make me feel safe, and confident without needing to put my walls up again. Some say, you’ve made me softer. I say that’s just too many gym sessions pushed aside to play videogames and order take out, but how can I frown, when the mere thought of you makes me happy?

 

I am not for flowery words, Jongin, nor am I for words for that matter, but taking care of you, seeing you happy and healthy beside me is all I can ever ask for.

 

Thank you so much, for building a home with me in our tiny apartment, Jongin.

 

I really hope you know what you’re getting yourself into, Jongin, because after this, we are stuck with each other forever. This is your last chance to run, but I sincerely hope you don’t.

 

But no, we are not adopting three dogs.

 

Just one.

 

Though, I know that isn’t going to stop you.

 

This all, I promise you, Kim Jongin.

 


End file.
